


Narcissa Rising

by Lomonaaeren



Series: Wednesday One-Shots [27]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Assassins & Hitmen, BAMF Narcissa Black Malfoy, Book 5: Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, Crack, F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-28
Updated: 2018-02-22
Packaged: 2019-01-06 09:29:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 9
Words: 26,372
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12208497
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lomonaaeren/pseuds/Lomonaaeren
Summary: Narcissa is facing a war, her foster son’s anguish at not being believed when he tries to tell the wizarding world about the Dark Lord’s return, her husband’s nervousness over possibly being summoned back to the Dark Lord’s side, the attempted interference of the Order of the Phoenix, and the unknown consequences of the Dark Lord having her blood in his veins. Of course, that’s not even a slight challenge. If people would only be calm andlet her work.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> The fifth part of my Narcissa Militant series. You really shouldn't be reading this if you haven't read the first four parts.

****Narcissa stepped back from the Owlery’s window and watched the great grey bird she had chosen as her messenger soar away. It carried the potions recipe that she had promised to send Severus. It would enable him to subdue and control the Dark Mark.

She only hoped that he would brew it quickly. From the signs of it, the Dark Lord had already started trying to call his followers back to him. Lucius would have been suffering if not for her quick thinking.

 _But then, that applies to much more than just this particular facet of the war,_ Narcissa thought, heading downwards with a shake of her head. Sometimes it was a mystery to her how Lucius had survived until she entered his life.

Draco met her at the bottom of the steps. He was clutching the _Daily Prophet_. Narcissa sighed, knowing what this would be about. “Let’s have tea with honey in the small dining room.”

Draco opened his mouth as if he was going to argue, but she had already walked away, so he had to trail after her. He spread out the paper on the table with a thump the instant she sat down, though, and thumped his finger next to a photograph on the front page equally hard.

“What are you going to _do_ about this?” he hissed.

Narcissa studied the photograph. It was a rather good rendition of the moment when she had knelt down to comfort Harry after he had been abducted by Portkey to the graveyard where the Death Eaters waited. His face was pale and his eyes were large, and he was looking at her from within the circle of her arms. Narcissa’s own face was hard and calm. No one could see under the surface from the look of it.

Only then did she pay attention to the headline, which was more likely the cause of Draco’s anguish. She smiled a little at the implication that Harry was lying, and looked up at Draco as the house-elves brought them their tea and honey. “Do about it? Why should I do something?”

“They all think Harry is lying for fame and attention!” Draco didn’t even pour the honey in. Narcissa modeled correct behavior, hoping that this wasn’t the beginning of a trend where Draco took after his father instead of her. “You don’t want to see him hurt, do you?”

“Oh, no.” Narcissa sipped the tea and sighed. “But killing a rumor is not as simple as killing a person.”

“Have you even _started_ doing something about it?”

Narcissa smiled as she thought of the second potion brewing in her lab, next to the large, almost pure marble cauldron where the main medium of her vengeance steamed and billowed. “Yes, I have.”

Draco paused and sat back in his chair. “If we go back to Hogwarts and everyone believes this…”

“Some of them will,” Narcissa replied. “But in a way, this is useful. It enables Harry to sort his true friends from the ones who only pretended to accept him back or believe that he didn’t put his own name in the Goblet of Fire. When he hears that they believe the lies, he will turn his back on them forever.”

“He said Weasley believes him, not the paper.”

“Then we must account Weasley a true friend. No matter _how_ much you hate him, Draco.”

Draco scowled into his teacup. Narcissa hid her smile and once again sipped at the tea. Yes, it was delicious and warm with just a tinge of sweetness. She would have to try a diluted form of the second potion on herself to be sure, but she was now sure the honey would mask the taste.

“How long does Harry have to suffer before you can silence them?” Draco whispered.

Narcissa reached out and gently squeezed his fingers. She kept up the hold until Draco relaxed and looked up at her. “Not long,” she said. “I am keeping him busy with his training. He doesn’t even read the papers now, only listens to your summaries, or mine, of what they say. He needs to remain aware of his enemies’ bitterness without allowing it to overwhelm his life.”

“Right.” Draco distractedly chewed his lip. “But—I want to do something right _now_.”

 _Yes, there is Lucius’s eager streak._ Narcissa maintained her hold on his fingers, and Draco finally sat back with a little pout. “You have every reason to want to protect him,” Narcissa said softly. “I know how much you care for him. But you are only going to make things worse if you rush into this.”

“Vengeance that takes a long time is the Slytherin way?”

“I don’t know about the Slytherin way,” said Narcissa, searching the memories of her schooldays for a moment. “It’s _my_ way.”

Draco smiled and seemed to relax completely for the first time since she and Harry had come back from the graveyard. “Thank you, Mother.” He stood up to kiss her cheek, and left most of his tea on the table in the cup as he marched out of the room, back straight.

Narcissa sipped her tea again. _Yes, definitely strong enough._

*

“What is that?” Narcissa asked, nodding to the piece of parchment that Harry was crumpling in his hand. Even if he sometimes messed up the drawings that she asked him to do, of poisonous plants and the like, she didn’t want him to destroy his efforts. He could study his mistakes and find a use for them.

“Just a letter Seamus wrote me.”

Narcissa took her seat on the other side of the schoolroom table from Harry and closed her eyes. Memories leaped into her mind of the time almost three years ago when she had dressed as a stereotypical assassin to frighten the worthless children in Gryffindor Tower. “His name is Finnigan?”

“Yes. He says—he said he believes the _Daily Prophet_.” Harry stopped speaking abruptly again and stared mutinously at the parchment.

“It is unfortunate that he is so stupid,” Narcissa replied calmly. “But why are you distressed? You know stupidity is not catching.”

“He accused me of being _mad_.”

“You are not. It is his loss. And now you know who to sacrifice among the Gryffindors if you ever choose to do so.”

Harry stared at her. “ _What_?”

“You could use him as bait instead of sacrificing him,” Narcissa offered. She understood that, although Harry was absorbing more and more of the discipline she had to teach, there were still certain things about the mindset that were foreign to him. “I understand that not everyone has the need for sacrificial blood rituals at all times. I only use them when I have something difficult and delicate that needs to be done quickly.”

Harry looked as if he was somewhere on the far side of laughter. He managed to clear his throat and said, “I won’t ever need to use someone in a sacrificial blood ritual.”

“You should not rule out a useful thing before you use it. What would happen if you needed a blood ritual to heal someone?”

“I can’t think of anyone I would sacrifice—”

“Not even for Draco?”

Harry closed his mouth the little bit he’d opened it. His cheeks were as red as a cut throat. Narcissa politely studied the tapestries on the other side of the room, which showed some of the most prominent family trees, until he regained his balance. Then Harry said, “I wouldn’t want to use it, but I would sacrifice Seamus for Draco.”

Narcissa turned back to him, pleased to see that his priorities were in the right order. “So would I,” she said, which made Harry laugh. “Now. What are you going to do about the immediate problem, which is that one of your roommates believes the _Daily Prophet_?”

Harry sat and thought it through. Narcissa remained in the room in case he had questions about what the discipline would require of him, but Summoned a book from the shelves and began to browse through it. It was too long since she had studied these particular interesting poisons.

“I’m going to write to him,” Harry finally said. “And I’m going to tell him what really happened, that I saw Voldemort return. Once. After that, if he wants to ignore me and believe what the idiots are saying, it’s his problem.”

Narcissa smiled at him. “That is the right answer. Both for the discipline, and for you.”

The way that Harry blossomed under her praise was incredible. It made Narcissa wonder if she had been remiss in not killing his relatives, but she _had_ killed the Headmaster, who was the one who had ultimately facilitated Harry’s abuse.

Besides, she wanted to save his relatives to be Harry’s first victims.

*

“I think there’s only one answer.”

That was the only thing Sirius had said for half an hour. He appeared content to hold his cup of hot chocolate and stare tragically into it.

Narcissa was allergic to tragic stares. She waited until he had shivered and not looked up even when she cleared her throat. Then she flicked her wand and made the hot chocolate leap out of the cup in a shining spray and coat Sirius’s face with foam.

Sirius leaped to his feet, shouting. Of course, that made him drop the cup. Narcissa was also allergic to the house-elves cleaning up messes that they didn’t have to. She flicked her wand again, and the chocolate that had spilled on the floor flew back into the cup. Then the cup—and the chocolate—deposited themselves neatly on Sirius’s head.

There was shouting and dancing, for a while. Narcissa sipped and watched. Sirius finally stopped dancing, waved his own wand to clear away the mess, and sat back down, glaring at her. Narcissa stopped a drop that wanted to turn her white chair dark brown, and arched her eyebrows a little.

“What was that for?”

“Not telling the truth. You have told me there is only one answer as to what Harry’s curse scar is, but not what it is.” Narcissa leaned towards him and let a little of her true self look out from under her mask. “I want the answer.”

Sirius sank back into the chair, incredulous gaze fastened on her. “You are really fucking scary,” he breathed.

“Thank you. The answer?”

Sirius looked the other direction, which was another tribute, and finally said, “The only answer that makes sense—along with the dreams that you told me he has and the moments of random anger he’s had since Voldemort returned—is a Horcrux.”

Narcissa sat still and thought about that. She supposed it _did_ make sense, especially in light of the diary. And the way that her Internal Inferno Curse had failed when she cast it at Nagini, which should _not_ have happened. Yes, the Dark Lord would think of Horcruxes, and would think of the immortality he could gain instead of the costs associated with them.

Narcissa had never heard of anyone making multiple Horcruxes, although she had idly wondered about the consequences. She supposed she didn’t need to, now, not when she could see the living proof of the Dark Lord standing in front of her.

“Very well,” she said, when enough time had passed for Sirius to start staring tragically at the wall. “Then we must decide what we are going to do about it.”

“ _Do_?” Sirius gave her a blank look. “We can’t _do_ anything about it.”

“You haven’t convinced me of that yet,” Narcissa pointed out, watching him and wondering if he was still being affected by the Dementors. She had hoped that concentration on a way to help Harry would aid in curing him of that, but it didn’t seem to have helped so far.

“Well, of _course_ there’s nothing we can do! There’s never been a living Horcrux before. I _looked_. The only way that you can destroy a Horcrux is to destroy the object it’s contained in, and that means—” Sirius choked and spread his hands. “Harry has to die.”

“That assumes we want to destroy the Horcrux.” Narcissa made her voice as gentle as possible. She didn’t want to scold Sirius. The delusions he was laboring under weren’t his fault. Azkaban had probably scrambled most of his faculties. “If we don’t assume we do, then of course we have more possibilities.”

“But—but we have to get rid of You-Know-Who!”

“Voldemort.”

Sirius flinched. Narcissa rolled her eyes. “You were _never_ a Death Eater, Sirius. You never bore the Dark Mark.”

“What does _that_ have to do with anything?”

“Merely,” said Narcissa, with an arch of a brow that she knew was perfectly contemptuous, “that you should have no reason to fear saying his name. Your flinch is exaggerated and perhaps a result of your imprisonment. Pay _attention_ , now.”

“But we have to get rid of _Voldemort_.” Sirius said it with an unnecessary amount of gritting teeth and sweat on his brow, but they could work on that, Narcissa thought. “We can’t just leave the Horcrux in Harry!”

“I never said that we would. I said we aren’t going to let him die.”

“I don’t like it either, Narcissa, but—”

“Do you care more about getting rid of Voldemort than you care about your godson?”

Sirius stared at her, and his fists clenched. “Of course not,” he said hollowly. “What I want most in the world is to spend time with Harry and see him grow up into—into the kind of man that I know he could be.”

“Then why did you turn immediately to killing him?” Narcissa waited, but Sirius said nothing. “It reminds me of a tactic that Dumbledore might have pursued. I think Dumbledore was on that path, trying to turn Harry into a weapon. He certainly sent him into danger in first year. I put a stop to that.”

“How—” Sirius’s face turned the color of whey, which was amusing, since it should have been that color already. “You killed him.”

“Yes.”

“But that—that’s not possible.”

Narcissa leaned in enough that Sirius could see into the depths of her eyes. “No one is beyond my reach when I’m protecting my own,” she said softly. “I’ve claimed Harry as one of mine, Sirius. You would be wise to put down any plans that you’ve made to profit from Harry’s death.”

Sirius shot to his feet and paced around the drawing room. “I would never—do something so _outrageous_ —”

“Good.” Narcissa leaned back and smiled at her cousin. “Then we should have no trouble in working together to remove the Horcrux from Harry.”

“There’s no _way—_ ”

“And you have read all the books in the world, of course. All the books in the Malfoy library and the Library of Hogwarts and other collections that we have easy access to.”

Sirius spun around and pointed a finger at her. “No, but I’m the one who’s spent months studying curse scars. You should damn _well_ believe me when I tell you that I don’t think a way exists.”

“And I think there does. I have never yet failed at something I set out to do when it came to saving the life of my children or my husband. Or you, for that matter. We are going to work together and get the Horcrux out of him.”

Sirius sank back into his chair, shuddering. Narcissa watched him and didn’t interrupt. This was something he had to work out on his own.

Finally, he sat up again and said, “I _was_ acting like Albus. Unquestioning belief that someone had to pay the price to get rid of Voldemort. And treating Harry like he wasn’t as innocent as someone else. What _am_ I?”

“Affected by the Dementors, dear cousin,” Narcissa said, standing and crossing the room to stroke his hair. “It throws you back on the memories of your youth, at least with other cases of innocence that I’ve studied. It’s not surprising that what you believed in your early twenties still has a strong hold on you. But we are going to find a different way.”

Sirius swallowed and nodded. Then he looked up and whispered, “Narcissa?”

She nodded in response.

“I’m really glad you’re here.”


	2. Part Two

“It is unusual that you would contact me.”

Headmistress McGonagall frowned a little, but didn’t let her gaze waver from Narcissa’s face. Of course, that was easier through the flames of the Floo connection than it would be in person, but Narcissa would still give her credit for bravery. “We went through Aurora’s records to try and figure out what would prompt her to betray us. We found your real name listed beside the name of the Astronomy apprentice from two years ago.”

Narcissa tilted her head. “I suppose I should have known Aurora would keep records like that. She is foolish in so many ways.”

McGonagall shivered absently. “Can you come and teach Astronomy? We already have a new Defense Against the Dark Arts professor, or I would have come and asked you for that.”

Narcissa listened to the tone in her voice and said, “I thought the Headmistress was in charge of hiring for all the positions.”

“I normally am, but—we found no candidate by a certain deadline, and the Ministry, in their infinite concern for the education of our children, took over.”

Narcissa listened to the words she spat, and the ones she didn’t. “And the name of this professor?”

“Dolores Umbridge.”

“She was the Senior Undersecretary to the Minister the last I knew. What does she know about teaching Defense Against the Dark Arts?”

“From the books I’ve seen? Nothing.” McGonagall’s face was flat. “But she does know a _lot_ about teaching Ministry propaganda and encouraging exactly the sort of reactions to the news that You-Know-Who is back that the Minister wants.”

Narcissa made the decision. It was going to be hard enough for Harry at Hogwarts this year, with some of his friends disbelieving him. She couldn’t leave him alone to face Umbridge’s tender mercies. “Then I suppose I had best brush up on my Astronomy.”

*

“Mrs. Malfoy. It’s so wonderful to see you!” Umbridge gushed, holding out her hand. She was smiling in the way that meant she knew exactly how many Galleons Lucius had donated to Fudge’s re-election campaign, and also the way that meant she was going to say something nasty in a moment. Narcissa calmly shook her hand and waited for the next statement.

It came. Umbridge’s face wrinkled and she put her hand to her mouth as if she’d only now thought of a problem. “Only—are you _sure_ that the foster mother of a student ought to be teaching a class he’s in? I could see some problems with fairness and objectivity. And the Ministry is very encouraging of fairness, you know.”

Narcissa laughed softly as she sat down next to Umbridge at the table, seeing the way that the students peered at her and tried to pretend that they weren’t peering. “I must admit I am surprised, Madam Umbridge. You doubt my ability to be fair to my foster son, but not my blood one?”

From the dull flush mounting Umbridge’s cheeks, she had indeed forgotten that Draco was also a student in the school. But she recovered quickly. “You’ve had Draco since he was a baby, and I’m sure he’ll be a credit to you. But the boy telling wild tales to the papers—”

“I can certainly show you his memories in a Pensieve,” said Narcissa. “If you doubt him that You-Know-Who has returned.”

“Tampered with, I have no doubt.” Umbridge gave her a pitying look. “A mother always wants to believe the best of her children—or so I’ve heard. I wouldn’t _know_.” She giggled girlishly. “But you have to admit the boy is powerful enough and enough of a traitor to good society to have forged those memories.”

“Tell me, my dear Dolores, what do you mean by ‘a traitor to good society’?”

The children were marching into the Great Hall now. Narcissa watched from the corner of her eye as Draco took his place at the Slytherin table, and saw Harry take the Gryffindor seat that was directly across from him. She had to smile. They might not announce they were dating for all to hear, but anyone who knew them had to see the exchanged glances and blushes and the occasional aborted gestures.

“I’m sure you’ve done your best with him.” Dolores lowered her voice and leaned closer, expression clear and sympathetic and gentle. “But we all know the truth. Raised by _Muggles_ , I’ve heard. And that blood mother. He can’t help but be a traitor to society in all his blood, no matter what you’ve done with him in the last few years.”

Narcissa moved her wand beneath the table and cast a simple spell on Dolores. Then she shook her head and said, “You’re wrong,” before she turned back to observe the Sorting. The spell would take her vengeance for her.

And it did. After the Sorting had finished—with fewer Slytherin students than normal, Narcissa noted with a faint frown—and McGonagall had risen to introduce them, Dolores cleared her throat and stood. McGonagall looked furious at being interrupted, but she sat down. Dolores opened her mouth.

What came out was, “I believe Harry Potter that You-Know-Who is back.”

Dolores promptly clapped her hands over her mouth, while her eyes bulged. Some of the students murmured; others stared; some did both. Narcissa calmly scooped up a square of cheese and delicately nibbled it to hide her smile.

The Reverse Intentions Curse would make Dolores say the opposite of whatever she really intended. It wasn’t an easy curse to figure out or thwart, unless someone honestly managed to change their mind or beliefs. Dolores wouldn’t, and she was too stupid to figure out what the curse had been and remove it on her own.

“That is not what I meant to say!” Dolores snapped. For a second, she patted her throat as if she thought she could somehow corral the words that were about to emerge. “Hem, hem. I meant that of _course_ You-Know-Who is back!”

Someone dropped a fork. Someone else shouted, but they were distant enough, at the far end of the Gryffindor table, that Narcissa couldn’t make out the words. She leaned back and said, loudly enough that her voice would reach some of the students, “Thank you for the support, Dolores. I am sure my foster son will thank you as well.”

“Harry Potter is telling the truth!”

Dolores’s face was almost purple. Narcissa nodded. “Oh, I knew that. But not everyone does. That’s the reason I wanted to thank you.”

“There is _no room_ in our world for people who doubt him!”

“Well, I wouldn’t go that far,” Narcissa said in a soft, thoughtful voice. “After all, we need so many people to make up the wizarding world that I don’t think it’s fair to say we’d ban them. But—”

“I interrupted this dinner for a good reason!” Dolores slammed one hand down amid the plates. “To say that Harry Potter is right!”

“I know, and we _do_ appreciate it.” Narcissa caught Harry’s eye from where he was staring at the Gryffindor table and winked. “I’m sure Harry would be glad to come to your office later to say so.”

Dolores sat back down, her face the color of a boiled brick. Narcissa thoughtfully munched some more cheese.

*

“The Ministry won’t tolerate interference with the Defense Against the Dark Arts position.”

Narcissa blinked. She had thought a curious student, probably a Ravenclaw, would be the one tapping on her door, not the Headmistress. She stepped back and shrugged a little. “If you want to come in, Minerva, you can.”

Minerva not only did, she turned around and pointed an accusing finger at Narcissa. “I know that you cast a spell on Dolores.”

“Why? Certainly she interrupted the dinner for a good reason, you heard her. If she had—”

“She was telling me before you arrived that Harry was a liar and that she would _never_ change her mind on that. And I know her. She’s adamant as a Ministry employee. She never would.” Minerva moved a step forwards. “I know that you want to protect your foster son. But interfering in the proper course of government—”

“I never knew you were this much of a stickler for the rules, Minerva. You were a Gryffindor, after all.”

“Don’t you _see_?” Minerva shouted at her, which was unexpected enough that Narcissa let her speak. “If the Ministry starts to suspect that someone _did_ cast a spell on Dolores, then they’ll do even more to interfere in Hogwarts!”

“You’re concerned for the school.”

“Yes.” Minerva turned away and stared at the far wall, which had a window that showed an unchanging vision of the constellation Orion. Narcissa was studying the spells that would make it show the constellation Draco instead. “Of course I am.”

“And you’re willing to sacrifice Harry’s reputation and education so that you can save the education of the rest of the students. _I_ see.”

“What? I never—”

“Yes, of course you would,” Narcissa said, and sighed when Minerva turned to give her what looked like a betrayed glance. “ _Come_ now, Minerva. You didn’t speak up to say anything when the papers and the Ministry began to slander Harry’s reputation. You would have kept silent if Dolores had been able to make her planned speech, which would have continued the slander. I can understand your fears for the school, but not your determination to sacrifice one student for the good of the others. Unless you really do follow Dumbledore’s ridiculous beliefs that he should have given up when he was a teenager.”

“What are you _talking_ about?”

“Oh, so he indoctrinated you, but never told you? He was a friend of Gellert Grindelwald. He believed in ‘for the greater good.’ I think he still did when he died. Of course, he had decided that Harry was the one who should pay the price.”

Minerva’s face looked like whey now. “Albus would never have—never expected a child to pay that price—”

“He did.” Narcissa shrugged. “It is one reason that I decided to become my foster son’s guardian, actually. Harry needs so much more help and protection than most children. Even people on his own side want to sacrifice him.”

“I don’t.”

“No, not his life. Just his reputation.”

Minerva folded her arms and glanced away. “The Ministry is threatening to shut Hogwarts down,” she said in a low voice. “You—and your children—have a safe home to go to. You cannot imagine how exposed some of our students would be if they had to go back to their parents right now. Particularly since some of their parents are—” She choked.

 _Yes, do remember the Dark Mark on my husband’s arm._ Not that Narcissa intended to tolerate its presence much longer. But Minerva was largely unconcerned with that side of the political battlefield and should remain so. “I still don’t intend to allow Harry to be a sacrifice.”

“But someone from the Ministry is going to notice the change in Dolores!”

Narcissa shook her head. “And what are they going to think, but that she changed her mind on her own? Perhaps that she’s even been secretly on Harry’s side and got them to give her the position here so she could proclaim it. The worst they’ll do is pull her and replace her with someone else. All the consequences will fall on her.”

“You cannot have cast an untraceable curse.”

“I can do many untraceable things.”

Minerva gave her a glance full of unease. “Perhaps I should be glad that you’re here to defend the students. But I would feel better if I knew that you wanted to protect someone other than Draco and Harry.”

“Well, you are protecting everyone _other_ than Harry. I think that we balance each other out nicely,” Narcissa said, and smiled at her.

Minerva couldn’t leave her rooms fast enough after that. Narcissa would have changed the constellation in the enchanted window and gone to bed, but an owl winged through the door and landed at her feet with a soft thump. It was Electra, the small black owl who delivered messages for Harry when he didn’t want to use his distinctive Hedwig. Narcissa had got Electra for him as a gift on his fifteenth birthday.

The scroll was small. Narcissa unrolled it and read the single line written on it.

_The Reverse Intentions Curse?_

Narcissa smiled. She was so _proud_ of Harry.

*

“Is it true that you can predict the future by the stars, Professor Malfoy?”

Narcissa tilted her head curiously. The question was one that hadn’t come up in her classes thus far. But then she remembered Harry saying something last year about how a few Gryffindor girls were far more interested in Divination than sensible fifteen-year-olds should be.

 _Then again, if they were sensible, they might not be in Gryffindor._ Narcissa flicked a strand of hair behind her ear and paced slowly among her students—who were all reclining on top of the Astronomy Tower and searching out constellation patterns with the naked eye—until she reached the student who’d asked. “That is correct, Miss Patil. But it takes both a special gift and special training.”

“Professor Trelawney says _I_ have the gift.” Patil was a pretty girl, but not when she looked that smug.

“Then perhaps you would not mind writing an essay for me on the patterns that you see when you look up at the stars during our class,” said Narcissa. The smugness burned up, but she kept her own face calm and genial. “Say, two feet, due next Wednesday.” Patil’s silence was suffocating, but Narcissa only nodded at her and turned to walk back towards the center of the Tower.

Harry’s shoulders were shaking in silent laughter. Narcissa nudged him gently in the center of the back with her boot as she passed by. She wanted to remind him not to get too smug himself. He _had_ written a question mark after his sentence the other day.

*

Dolores Umbridge continued to proclaim her support of Harry whenever she could, and discuss how students needed to learn practical Defense skills in her class. Narcissa wanted to shake her head when she heard that. She’d seen the books that Draco and Harry had to buy, of course, but it was interesting that the Ministry _really_ wanted no spells taught in Defense.

She would have to do something about the Minister soon. Even his sycophancy to Lucius was rapidly being outweighed by his other disadvantages.

She taught Astronomy, and smiled at Dolores when they met at meals, and calmly ignored the Howlers that started to show up with some frequency as Dolores struggled to control her mouth, and failed. Harry had asked if the Reverse Intentions Curse applied even to letters. Narcissa had looked at him calmly, until his face flushed and he realized how stupid he had been to ever question that she would cast a curse the victim could easily outwit.

But the curse did not control all of Dolores’s _actions_. And when Harry managed to get a detention with her for instructing someone else in his class on the Shield Charm—well.

Narcissa saw the way Harry averted his eyes from her face in the Great Hall the next day, and simply waited. The fifth-year Gryffindors had Astronomy again that night. And Harry could never lie to her.

Or conceal things from her. Like his hand when he walked slowly and awkwardly into the classroom and tried to slide it under his desk.

Narcissa cocked her head and sniffed delicately. Even if she hadn’t been sensitive to the uses of blood magic, she would have smelled the Murtlap Essence that Harry had spread on the wound.

“You can tell me, or I can drag it out of you,” she said to Harry in a normal-sounding, low voice as the other students began to arrive. “And then I can decide what I need to do about Dolores.”

Harry looked up at her. For a moment, his jaw clenched, and then he said only, “She made me use a blood quill.”

“Slow and painful, then,” Narcissa said calmly. She was boiling with rage, but she could hide that as always. She turned around to accept the two-foot essay on star divination from Patil. “Thank you, Miss Patil.”

“No.”

Narcissa turned her head slowly back around. She couldn’t even _remember_ the last time Harry had disobeyed her. “What did you say to me, Harry?”

“I said that I want to take care of it,” Harry said. His back was straight, and now his hand—clumsily bandaged with cloth soaked in Murtlap Essence—was resting openly on the desk. “That’s the reason I hid it from you.”

Narcissa breathed out slowly. Given Harry’s innate kindness and friendliness, she had been sure that he wouldn’t be ready to make his first kill until next year. And then she had been sure it would be his abusive relatives. “You have the necessary drive?”

“I do.” Harry’s eyes were quiet, but not soft. Narcissa looked into them and guessed the reason before he spoke it. “Draco suffered the same way.”

_And did not come to me?_

Narcissa asked the question without words. Harry cocked his head a little to the side and looked pointedly at the Malfoy family crest that Narcissa wore, without fuss, over her heart.

The message was clear. _You’re his mother. He was embarrassed to go to a professor who’s related to him._

But of course he wouldn’t have kept it from Harry. And now Narcissa had to wonder about the real cause of the detention that Harry had got. And why he had decided to accept it instead of coming to her.

_Reconnaissance._

Narcissa carefully let loose the hold on her temper. She had to trust Harry at some point, the same way that her own teachers had needed to let her loose to fly in the embrace of the discipline. And she was nearby. If something did go wrong and Harry pulled his hand at the last moment, Narcissa would be there to give the finishing blow.

And with Draco as motivation—another’s suffering instead of his own—Narcissa doubted he would.

“Very well,” she said, and shooed the curious Patil back to her seat as she went up to the front of the room.

Part of her, watching from a distance, had to admit this would be an excellent test. If Harry couldn’t take care of Draco properly, Narcissa wanted to see the proof of that outside a battle situation.

And, of course, she would be nearby. Watching.


	3. Part Three

“It was stupid, really.”

Narcissa raised her brows in silent commentary, and Draco flushed, looking down as he rubbed at his hand. Narcissa reached out and calmly moved his fingers away from the hand so she could see it. Yes, there were bleeding words there beneath the bandage, which, like Harry’s, was soaked with Murtlap Essence.

“Telling me it’s stupid doesn’t tell me what you did to earn detention with Dolores.” Narcissa prepared tea calmly. They were in her private quarters, and no one else was due to come here this evening. She thanked all skill privately that she wasn’t a Head of House, with student due to burst in at any moment because they were dating someone, it wasn’t working out, and they weren’t intelligent enough to resort to knives or poison.

“I was talking to Greg outside class and I happened to be imitating Minister Fudge.” Draco sighed and took the teacup with a little nod of thanks. “Umbridge overheard me and gave me a detention for ‘accurate portrayal of the government.’”

Narcissa considered the situation, both what it had turned out to be and what the detention would have been for were Dolores not under the Reverse Intentions Curse, and nodded slowly. “Not as bad as it could have been.”

“Really?” Draco sat up on his chair and seemed to tremble a little.

Narcissa nodded to him again and gave him a tray of biscuits. At least he waved his wand to check for potions this time, a habit she was trying to encourage him to take more seriously. “Yes. You could have earned detention for openly saying the Dark Lord has returned.”

“But I believe Harry.”

“Yes. And he _must_ speak it. And so must I. But that is not something I wish for you yet.”

“Why _not_? I’m just as brave and I can bear as much pain as he can!”

Narcissa gave him a fleeting glance, and Draco looked down and flushed. “Fine. But I bore this pain and I didn’t come crying to you.” He waved his bandaged hand in the air. “I only told Harry because he saw me and forced me to tell him.”

“I am still waiting for the explanation of _why_ you wished to hide it.”

Draco hunched in on himself. Then he said, “I know why you didn’t want me to talk about—the Dark Lord being back. There are too many people in Slytherin who might be his supporters. And Harry’s in Gryffindor, so he doesn’t have to deal with that, and you’re a professor and the Slytherin students can’t hurt you the same way. But Mother—people are asking me anyway. They’ve been hexing me and seeing how well I can withstand the pain. I wanted to show you that I wasn’t going to whine about _this_ when I hadn’t whined about _that_.”

“Your telling me the truth is not whining,” Narcissa said quietly. “And your giving me the names of the students who hexed you is not tattling.”

“But—”

“I am not going to kill the students who did that,” said Narcissa, and she frowned a little when she saw the relief on Draco’s face. Had she given the impression that she was _that_ ruthless? Then again, she supposed Draco might have forgotten the efforts she had made to spare the Gryffindor students who had taunted Harry in his second year. It was so long ago, for the young. “I want their names for another reason.”

“What, Mother?”

“Do you want to know? Keep in mind that a few of your classmates may know Legilimency.”

“I’ll get better at Occlumency!”

Narcissa studied him and determined that was the truth this time, unlike the summer holidays, when he seemed to inherently resent doing anything except the assigned homework he must do. She nodded. “Very well. I plan to expose their parents as either Death Eaters or Death Eater sympathizers.”

Draco’s eyes got very wide. “But what if they’re only saying it to fit in? Or they don’t really believe it even though their parents do?”

Narcissa smiled at her son. A few years ago, she knew, he would have been incapable of that much nuance. Knowing and loving Harry had been good for him. “That is why I need their names. I can investigate more easily then.”

“You can even investigate what their parents say to them in private?”

“Your classmates are not the only ones who know Legilimency, Draco.”

Draco blushed as she gently drove home the point he really should have known, and nodded. “All right. I just—I don’t want anyone to be accused or have their lives ruined if it really isn’t true.”

“I will determine whether it is or is not, and their parents will suffer the appropriate consequences. There is no true reason for the children to do so, unless they are interested in following the Dark Lord or already Marked.”

“There are a few seventh-years I think might be.” Draco whispered that truth even here, in her private quarters.

“You can feel the magic around their arms?” Draco nodded, and Narcissa smiled, honestly impressed. That was a talent she had not honed as she should, with her other training and not having a strong gift for it; Draco, not concentrating on the discipline the way Harry was, could now do something she could not. “Wonderful, Draco. Please give me their names, and I will keep a special eye on them.”

Draco told her the names, and drank his tea, and ate his biscuits, and only asked his next question when he was ready to leave. “What’s going to happen to Umbridge?” he asked quietly, eyes distant, as he stood with his hand on the doorknob.

“She will be taken care of.”

Draco abruptly spun around and hugged her. Narcissa blinked and patted his back. She hadn’t realized Dolores had so unnerved him.

“Mother, you’re wonderful and terrifying,” Draco whispered, then rushed off.

 _It is nice to be appreciated,_ Narcissa thought, and went humming to her next task.

*

Harry insisted on having another detention with Dolores so that he could scout her office Narcissa disapproved, but he came straight to her for more Murtlap Essence and a few Dark spells that would ease the effects of the blood quill. And he told her what he’d discovered.

“All of those cats can tell her what I’m doing even when she’s not there,” Harry said, and translated when Narcissa stared at him. “The cats she has on the china plates hanging on the walls. I put down the quill to stretch my hand for a minute while she was in the corridor, and she came back in after I’d picked it up and scolded me for stopping.”

While Narcissa was not entirely sure that it was the cats who had told Dolores that and not something else, she had to admit she could find no way to be sure that it wasn’t. And it would make Harry take extra precautions that were all to the good.

“She could be a powerful Dark magic user if she wanted,” Harry admitted. “I saw her put up a privacy charm when someone Flooed her while I was in the detention. It’s one you mentioned, that day when I asked you about blood-fueled magic.”

“Ah, yes.” Their discussion had been about what blood magic could do other than hurt someone. Privacy charms had been something Narcissa told Harry about, but since he seemed reluctant to perform the small sacrifices needed beforehand, she doubted he would ever use it. “Could you see what she’d killed?”

“No. She must have done it too long before I got there, and hidden the body too well.”

Narcissa nodded. As long as she didn’t hear reports of any students’ pets going missing, she probably wouldn’t know what Dolores had killed, either. “Very well. When do you want to make the assault on her office?”

Harry closed his eyes and kept them closed while he carefully rubbed Murtlap Essence into his cuts. Narcissa watched the words until she was sure what they were under the bandages and the motion of Harry’s hand. _I must not tell lies._

Well. Dolores would have taken that particular revenge because of being compelled to tell the truth—the objective truth, not the one she chose. Narcissa smiled. She intended to bring the woman down if Harry’s conscience floored him at the last minute.

“I’m going to wait until Halloween,” Harry decided, and opened his eyes. “No one will be upset with me if I don’t want to celebrate that day. I’ll just tell them celebrating my parents’ murder isn’t all right with me.”

Narcissa nodded. “And what equipment will you need for the assault?”

As they discussed it, a small owl fluttered through the window and straight towards her. Narcissa opened the message without stopping her part in the conversation. She recognized Sirius’s owl, and she didn’t think it was urgent.

_I’ve discovered a possible means of getting rid of a Horcrux in a living being._

“Well, more urgent than I expected,” Narcissa murmured. Since there was nothing else in the letter, she put it aside and made a mental note to write back to Sirius as soon as she could.

Harry had stopped talking. Narcissa glanced at him and elevated an eyebrow. Harry shook his head. “I thought you’d reply to the letter.”

“I had to look at it. But whenever you’re talking, nothing is more important than you.”

Harry’s face lit up as if someone had set off fireworks for his birthday. Narcissa wondered, again, how his family could have been so spiteful as to be able to ignore that.

_Well, Dolores will be excellent practice for them. Perhaps it’s best that they won’t be his first kills. He would never have managed to make them suffer as they deserve._

*

Narcissa sat calmly on a windowsill on the side of the Astronomy Tower, looking towards Gryffindor Tower. When she saw the small shadow coming out of a window on that Tower, she stood and reached up to the brooch at her throat. It clasped her cloak shut, and to the unobservant eye, that was all it did. It was also made of bronze and formed in the shape of a crescent moon, both a metal and a motif so common as not to be worthy of a second glance.

But when she swiveled the brooch to the left, so that the horns of the moon both pointed downwards, she could step confidently off the windowsill and float towards Harry. She felt only a slight bob from the wind. She smiled a little, pleased that it had worked. She had only previously tested that charm a short distance above the gardens of Malfoy Manor.

Harry had slung one leg over his broom, and was watching her come. He grinned at her. “You’ll let me do it?”

“I will not interfere unless it seems as if something’s beginning to go wrong,” Narcissa promised him. She kept to herself what _she_ thought would go wrong, namely, that Harry’s tender conscience would prick him. Her statement would still be true if his magic failed or there turned out be more of a problem getting into Dolores’s quarters than he’d anticipated.

Harry nodded and closed his eyes for a minute. Narcissa recognized the marshaling of his inner forces and waited quietly. Then Harry opened his eyes and kicked off from the Tower, and Narcissa followed behind him, casting Disillusionment Charms over them both.

Harry landed quietly enough on the windowsill of Dolores’s office. Then he took out his wand and began to cast the numerous charms that were necessary to disarm the protections someone as paranoid as Dolores would probably have placed on every entrance. Narcissa floated back and tensed only once or twice, when she thought Harry was going to forget something and then he surprised her by casting it perfectly.

When Harry paused, Narcissa tilted her head. Then she smiled as she saw his strategy. He hadn’t confided _everything_ to her.

She nodded, and Harry stopped looking back at her and smashed the window.

The tinkle of glass pieces on the room’s floor was nothing compared to the sudden scream that echoed through the corridors. It would sound even louder in Dolores’s ears than it did in this section of the castle, Narcissa knew. And it would bring her running from the Halloween feast.

Harry could have set a trap that would kill her later, and Narcissa would have urged that in some cases, but the woman had hurt Draco. Harry cast a Hardening Charm on his cloak and hands and squeezed through the broken window without being cut, dropping to the floor. Then he straightened up and drew out his wand.

His smallness of size was something for which Narcissa would always curse the Dursleys and their withholding of his food, but on the other hand, if not for that, he wouldn’t have fit through the window, and he wouldn’t have been so lithe and deadly and prone to make his enemies underestimate him. At the moment, he hardly looked threatening, a skinny fifteen-year-old holding a polished holly wand.

Only Narcissa—and Draco—saw him as not skinny, but slender. And _waiting_ was different from merely _standing_.

Dolores burst through the door, panting and more red than pink. She saw Harry and the broken window and slid to a stop, staring. Harry stared back. His eyes were beginning to flare with the power he was calling. Narcissa was the one who had taught him the tactics to call up his magic and hold it in instead of releasing it right away.

“You are here,” Dolores said, and she must have just intended surprise, not hatred, because the Reverse Intentions spell didn’t activate.

Harry nodded a little. Now Narcissa would be surprised if someone didn’t notice the subtle green glow coming from his eyes. But Dolores wasn’t in the mood to notice such things at the moment. She might _never_ be in the mood to attribute power to her opponent, Narcissa thought.

She stalked slowly forwards, her stubby wand swinging in her hand. “You are going to pay for telling the truth, Harry Potter.” Not even the unwanted truth she was speaking seemed to distress her.

Harry only looked up at her. Finally, Dolores jerked to a stop. Perhaps it was the remote, placid expression on Harry’s face.

“What are you playing at, Potter?”

“You have harmed me,” Harry said, and his words were ritual in sound. Narcissa smiled slowly. She was _so_ proud of him. “You have harmed the one I love, the one I claim as mine. You will harm more people if left unchecked. I am here to make you pay for that.”

Dolores sneered. “You could do that.” Her face went pinker this time, and she drummed a hand on her desk. “I _meant_ to say that!”

“Of course,” Harry said. Narcissa worried for a moment that the interruption to the ritual would disrupt the power Harry was gathering, but from the way he stood a little straighter and smiled, that hadn’t happened. “I am here to execute you.”

The magic burst forth and poured from him. The room was lit with a shifting green light that, for a moment, Narcissa could only compare to the Killing Curse. Then she shook her head impatiently. No, of course not. This light was too vivid, too bright. It looked like trees burning with low-intensity fire.

“ _Execute_? Little boy—”

They were the last words she spoke.

The green magic sprang out, tracing lines that consisted of the broken glass on the floor—Narcissa hadn’t even recognized the pattern Harry had made sure to break the window in—the quills on the desk, and the stones on the floor. Narcissa approved. The entrance Harry had forced, the instruments that had tortured him and Draco in symbolic form, the ground of the place that Harry belonged to and Dolores was an intruder in.

The whole room was flaring now, and Narcissa felt the blowback as another wind even outside where she hovered. Dolores’s mouth was dropping open. She looked as if she would begin to scream or hysterically sob in seconds.

But the magic rose up around her, seized her head and her heels at the same moment, and crushed her.

Dolores did scream then, but the sounds were so faint as she began to die that Narcissa didn’t think anyone would come to investigate them. She did cast a Silencing Charm at the room’s door, because that was the only spell she could manage without looking away from the execution.

Dolores became a smaller and smaller package, muscle and flesh forced to compact size in a tiny, floating ball. She still glowed brilliant pink, but that might be her cardigan more than anything else, Narcissa thought, detached enough to admire Harry’s handiwork. By the time the green magic flickered and faded, Dolores was a glittering ball, sharp-edged where the broken bones shone through, and most definitely dead.

Harry took a huge, whooping breath and began to topple over. Narcissa immediately cast a modified Summoning Charm that pulled him out of Dolores’s office and back to his broom. The last thing they needed was him leaving some trace that an Auror could pick up.

Harry leaned against her as Narcissa floated down onto the broom herself and steered it back towards Gryffindor Tower. “That was hard,” he whispered, and was quiet, and then he said, “Was it worth it?”

“You are the only one who can answer that question,” Narcissa told him, bowing her head so her hair whispered around him.

Harry said nothing until Narcissa had deposited him on his bed, there to await the return of his friends and the “news” of Dolores’s death. Then he reached out and caught her hand. Narcissa tilted her head curiously towards him.

“It was,” Harry said, and no more.


	4. Part Four

 

“You don’t look as crushed as I thought you would at Dolores’s death.”

Narcissa smiled at Minerva over the top of her teacup. “Crushed? I never knew you could make such a pun in the name of gallows humor, Minerva. I’m impressed.”

Minerva’s hands tightened on the edges of her plate, but she couldn’t make the commotion that she obviously wanted to since they were at breakfast. She lowered her voice to a hiss instead. Narcissa considered, and then rejected, the notion of telling her that no hissing was impressive that someone who had heard Harry’s Parseltongue. “I want to know if you had something to do with it.”

Narcissa blinked. “Why would I? I didn’t like Dolores all that much as a person, but she did indeed support Harry when she didn’t have to do so. I thought it was brave of her to go against the Ministry the way she did.”

Minerva looked almost ready to pick up her breakfast plate and throw it. Narcissa thoughtfully gave her a few more sausages. Such outrage was sometimes caused by lack of protein.

“You are much more than I thought you were,” Minerva muttered. She had eaten a few of the sausages, so Narcissa thought that much was a success.

“More compassionate? More interesting? More intelligent? I hear such a qualifying word and I want more than the qualifications.” Narcissa caught Draco’s eye and lifted her cup in a small salute. Harry wasn’t at breakfast yet, “sleeping in” while the rest of the school buzzed over the death of Dolores.

“You are more dangerous.”

“Oh?”

“I know very well you had something to do with Dolores’s death,” Minerva said, leaning in to say it. Narcissa was grateful for that. It meant she didn’t have to kill Minerva right away and deprive the school of a Headmistress. “You are the only new professor in the school this term—”

“And that must mean that I’m capable of something like this? I’m hardly a Defense Against the Dark Arts professor with a record of publication fraud or an enemy attached to the back of my head, you know.”

Minerva frowned at her as if wondering how she had heard about those things. Narcissa was glad that she didn’t ask, because she would have had to respond in a tone so dry that it would mean she had to drink three more glasses of water.

“Very well,” Minerva conceded. “But I know you had something to do with it.”

“Why?”

“You look too smug.”

Narcissa shook her head. “If that is enough criteria to count, then you can look around and find three hundred other criminals in the Great Hall, Minerva. Do you know how many of these children endured her detentions with a blood quill?”

Minerva closed her eyes and looked ill. Then she said, “I didn’t know it had gone that far.”

Narcissa ate a tart berry and said nothing. The same way that Minerva had made a decision on behalf of the entire school to sacrifice Harry’s name and reputation, she _should_ have known what was happening among the students. What use was it to sacrifice one for the good of the many if you didn’t pay attention to the many, either?

But Minerva was still better than Albus Dumbledore, who had actively endangered Harry’s safety. Narcissa saw no reason to strike and remove her from the position just yet.

From the corner of her eye, she saw Harry finally come into the Great Hall. She noticed that he was hurrying along the way he did when he was late for breakfast—she could not cure him of that habit even though he knew the house-elves at home would always hold food for him—and that he looked stressed, as he had every day this year. He dashed into his seat and began to dish out the porridge. Narcissa was pleased. Too much sulking or strutting would have attracted attention.

“The Ministry will send us someone else. Maybe someone worse,” Minerva went on, brooding the way that only Gryffindors could.

Narcissa shrugged. She would deal with that person if they were a threat, as well. In the meantime, she had classes to teach and boys to keep safe.

*

Narcissa was in the middle of praising Lavender Brown and Parvati Patil for the interesting essays on telling the future by the stars when she saw the first drops of blood well from Harry’s Horcrux scar.

She pretended that she hadn’t noticed, even when Harry reached up to rub his forehead and Granger shrieked. Then she turned around and came up to Harry, gently catching his wrist when he reached up to rub again. She gave him a calm look and glanced at Granger. “Is something wrong, Miss Granger?”

“Harry’s _bleeding_!” Granger pointed a shaking finger.

“I know,” said Narcissa. “He will need to go to the hospital wing at once, as there is no sign of a visible injury, and therefore it may be related to internal magical ones. Will you volunteer to accompany him, Miss Granger?”

As she had thought would happen, Harry’s friends calmed down once she gave them something to do. Granger and Weasley both went with him, which might seem excessive, but Harry could use the extra protection right now. Narcissa sent the others back to work, looking up at the sky with enchanted telescopes that could see through the clouds.

“Professor Malfoy?”

Narcissa didn’t immediately recognize this student’s voice, but when she turned around, she nodded. “Mr. Finnegan. Did you have a question?”

Seamus Finnegan stared at his desk, where an essay was spread out, but not more than half written. “Harry was telling the truth, wasn’t he? That he has some kind of connection to—that You-Know-Who is back?”

Narcissa found it amusing that the boy was more willing to name the Dark Lord’s return than the fact of Harry’s connection to him, but it honestly didn’t matter _what_ he said as long as he could act like Harry’s friend again. She nodded. “He is, Mr. Finnegan. I saw him with my own eyes.”

“Yeah, but you’re his foster mother. You could have been lying.”

“A fascinating theory, Mr. Finnegan. I will remember that you find lying about Dark magic for those you care for an acceptable and normal thing when you begin to turn in more assignments.”

Finnegan started and stared at her. “You can’t be _offended_ , Professor Malfoy! No one believed Harry—”

“And now they are beginning to recant.” The Ministry was officially still “investigating” Dolores’s death and hadn’t sent a new Defense professor yet. Narcissa peered mildly at Finnegan. “Do you think truth depends on how many people believe it?”

Finnegan turned bright crimson and went back to his work. Narcissa nodded a little. She did not think that Harry’s fellow Gryffindors were all bad influences, any more than all of Draco’s Slytherins were, but it did seem as though perhaps some of them might have gone into Gryffindor because of the lack of brains to be placed anywhere else.

*

“Are you alone, Narcissa?”

“Alone and with my quarters warded so that no one can try to listen in, as per your request.”

Sirius swallowed and nodded. Even through the necessarily green flames of the fireplace, his expression was sickly. “Okay. Okay. I know how to transfer the Horcrux out of Harry and into another being. Not a living one—that was what I thought at first, but then we would have the same problem of not wanting to kill someone.”

 _Perhaps you would._ Narcissa let no sign of that thought cross her tranquil face. “So you came up with a different kind of being?”

“ _Semi-_ living. A portrait. I did think of an animal, but I think Voldemort’s magic would probably know the difference between a human being and an animal.”

“And it might resist. What a fascinating theory.” Narcissa began to smile. She could have come up with the solution on her own, perhaps, but she did enjoy it when others’ minds worked well. “Did you have a specific portrait in mind?”

“Mother’s. At Grimmauld Place.”

Narcissa laughed before she could stop herself. “Yes, that would be good practice,” she agreed. “And not one that you would mind destroying afterwards.”

“Of course not.” Sirius grinned at her. “Still, I want you to read over my notes. I’m still—sometimes my brain clouds over as if I’m still in Azkaban.” He frowned and rubbed his forehead. “I want you to make sure that I’m not overlooking something obvious that would make this a bad idea.”

“Of course we will wait,” Narcissa murmured. “And we will probably not want to perform the ritual until the end of the school year anyway.”

“You said Harry was bleeding from the forehead the other day!”

“Yes, but the Dark Lord does not seem able to do anything more than that. Even his prophetic dreams have stopped.” Narcissa frowned to herself. “I wonder if using my blood rather than Harry’s disrupted the control that the Dark Lord would have had over the Horcrux connection otherwise.”

“Look, if I can learn to call him Voldemort, so can you.”

Narcissa simply shrugged, neither confirming nor denying. “That would be something else you could research, you know. The ritual he used, and whether it would have all the effects without the blood of an enemy. Or without the blood of a particular enemy. There must be a reason that he chose Harry to use, when he could have gone through much less elaborate plans to capture someone else who opposed him.”

Sirius scowled. “I doubt he thought that far ahead. He probably just wanted to be seen as unafraid of Harry.”

“Research it anyway.”

“Yes, O mighty commander,” Sirius muttered, and disappeared into the flames before Narcissa could tell him he’d done well, something she knew was often essential when dealing with underlings.

She sighed. Well, she could owl him her congratulations and thanks after he’d owled her the notes he had so far on transferring a Horcrux from a living being into a portrait. After all, it might be that he was completely wrong.

*

“Everyone,” Minerva said through gritted teeth as she stood up and waved a hand at the man in fine Auror robes who had entered the Great Hall, “please welcome Professor John Dawlish, who will be taking over the position vacated by Professor Umbridge.”

Narcissa studied the man in front of her with interest as she rose and performed a small curtsey, which anyone remembering her social position would expect of her. His face was flushing an interesting combination of colors. She wondered if he was sensing Dark magic in the crowd of students, which would be possible from some of the Slytherins and Ravenclaws who weren’t careful enough with their research or were already Marked. Or perhaps that constipated look was his natural expression.

From Minerva’s look as she escorted him between the tables to his seat, he was someone loyal to the Ministry. Well, Narcissa could deal with that. She resumed her seat and smiled at Dawlish again as Minerva led him to the seat beside her.

“Mrs. Malfoy.” Dawlish sounded relieved to have someone he recognized. “Or should I say Professor Malfoy?”

“Either would be correct, but Professor more so in the confines of the school,” Narcissa murmured, giving him the sort of smile that always went far with Fudge. “But I would ask that you, in particular, call me Narcissa.”

Dawlish chattered with her for the rest of the meal, and even though he cut himself off with a nervous laugh and a shake of his head more than once, it was obvious he was here as much to investigate Dolores’s death as to teach classes. Narcissa wasn’t surprised. She nodded and made sympathetic noises when he described the furor that the loss of Dolores had caused the Ministry. She even listened with calmness to the unflattering way he talked about Harry.

Dawlish did stop at one point and laugh uneasily again. “I’m sorry, Narcissa. It must hurt to hear people talking about your foster son in this way.”

“Well. It’s no more or less flattering than what was printed in the papers for months, when many of the students thought he was out to cheat his way to glory in the Triwizard Tournament.” Narcissa shook her head and picked up a piece of apple, sucking daintily on it. She saw the way Dawlish stared at her mouth and carefully didn’t laugh. “I’m grateful that the Tournament never happened in the end.”

Dawlish narrowed his eyes. “Did Potter have anything to do with that?”

Narcissa widened her eyes. “If he could do magic like that, then why wouldn’t he have the magic to beat the challenges?”

“I’m sorry, you’re right. It’s stupid to think a fourteen-year-old boy would have power like that.”

 _Right. You don’t understand the power he wields._ Narcissa finished sucking down the last moisture from the apple and saw Dawlish hastily averting his eyes again, ducking his head and shaking it as if he had flies in his ears. She smiled a private smile. She could use that.

“But who really knows how he defeated You-Know-Who,” Dawlish said suddenly. “He must have some kind of power we don’t know about if he could do that as a _baby_.”

Narcissa managed to keep her face calm and polite. As boorish as Dawlish was, he wasn’t a patch on Cornelius when he thought he was being witty. “I’m sure that I would have noticed if he was capable of leveling the place or killing a person, Auror Dawlish. I have lived with him for four years, after all.”

“Call me John.” Dawlish leaned forwards and smiled more at her teeth than anything else.

Narcissa restrained a sigh of vexation. She would have to wait and see what happened, whether it was worth killing Dawlish herself or not.

*

“I want you to meditate,” Narcissa said, and made her voice as lulling as possible so that both Harry and Draco would listen and stop peering at each other from the corners of their eyes. “Envision the drifting ocean I told you of. The waves, the colors, the foam as the waves break against the shore…”

She moved them slowly through the meditation, until they would envision themselves on a ship that sped through the waters or drifted through them, as they desired. Even when the fire snapped hard, they didn’t flinch. Narcissa nodded. That meant their Occlumency was getting stronger.

“And now, descend the ship as it comes into port,” she said, carefully guiding them back out of the visualization. Lucius had always insisted that coming out of it rapidly didn’t induce any ill effects, but then, Lucius had said the same thing about the Dark Mark. “Stretch your legs, stretch your arms, and open your eyes.”

They both opened their eyes at the same time, and grinned at each other. Then Draco leaned forwards to swipe one of the small sandwiches the Malfoy house-elves had made, and said, “There’s starting to be a murmur in the Slytherin common room.”

“About Voldemort?” Harry was alert instantly, as prepared as a snake, turning to face Draco.

Draco nodded, but, conscious of Narcissa’s disapproving eye, waited until he was finished chewing to speak. “Yes. There are some of the older students saying he’ll win the war and everyone needs to join him or die. They don’t threaten people that obviously, but that’s the undertone of their comments.”

“Those are the Marked ones?” Narcissa asked quietly.

Draco shook his head. “Not all of them. A few are like Amsart—I don’t think he’s Marked, but he wants to follow whoever the strongest leader is. And there’s a few who like to hint and seem mysterious. I doubt they’re in the Dark Lord’s ranks. They just want people to pay attention to them.”

“But that yearning for attention might extend to getting the Mark.”

“Yes, Mother.”

Narcissa sat and thought about that for a short time. Then she turned to Harry. “Your last heroic deed cannot be told,” she said quietly. “The one before that, not enough people believe happened. But I know that you _can_ do something impressive in public, Harry. It’s time.”

Harry looked up and gave her a flat look. Narcissa studied the way his hands clenched on his knees. He would do what he had to do, and his devotion to her and the discipline kept him from complaining aloud, but it wasn’t like he really _wanted_ to do it, either.

“Harry?”

“I don’t know what else I can do,” Harry said flatly. “It’s not like we can call Voldemort to a certain place so that we can fight him, and even if we did, I might lose. And there isn’t another enemy people would be impressed to see me dueling.”

“There is something you can do,” Narcissa said, quietly, surely. She had looked at the notes Sirius had sent her, and even though this wasn’t their focus, she was confident it would work. “The Horcrux that burns in you? It can be turned against Voldemort’s servants, if not Voldemort himself.”

Harry stared at her with widened eyes. Draco sat up. “The Marked students?”

“Yes.” Narcissa smiled at them. “We impress a potential audience, get rid of a problem that might threaten Draco in Slytherin, and show many people that Voldemort has returned all at once.”

“Oh.” Harry relaxed with a motion like a lazy dropping of a cobra’s coils. “If it’ll hurt the people who are threatening _Draco_ , I’m all for it.”

Narcissa carefully did not roll her eyes. She would teach him to have a care for his own life at the last.

But now was not the last. And Harry looked more than satisfied with his reward of having Draco beam at him with softened eyes.

Narcissa’s teachers in the discipline had taught her that attachments were a weakness, and one should not have them. But she had come to accept that those beliefs had little to do with reality.

_Love is a reason for both murder and self-defense. What other reason does one need?_


	5. Narcissa Rising

Harry stood nibbling his lip as he looked at the sprawling grounds in front of him. “This could go wrong.”

“It could. Which is the reason that you are the only one who can decide if he wants to do this.” Narcissa gently smoothed some of the lines from Harry’s forehead. Harry swallowed and abruptly turned, leaning his forehead against her shoulder.

“I don’t know what to do.”

Narcissa calmed her own worries, that Harry might not be strong enough to carry this off, and smiled gently down at him. Honestly, she remembered the point when _she_ had reached this stage in the discipline. She had just enough idea of her strength to know how many others, stronger than she, were out there. She had fought an internal battle between proceeding in her training and turning back.

It was tempting to let adults take care of things. But the temptation would be less to Harry than most, who hadn’t had adults for most of his life who he could trust to help him scoop his intestines back in if he was bleeding out. He would get through this, probably faster than she had.

Sure enough, Harry let her stroke the back of his neck five times before he stood up and shook his head. “No, I want to do it. It’s—well, it’s the only way.” He paused and looked towards the Forbidden Forest. “You’re sure that Sirius is already there with that mirror?”

Narcissa nodded. “And you know that if this doesn’t succeed the way we want it to, you will have other chances?”

“If this doesn’t succeed, the whole _point_ is missing, though. We have to show how weak and terrified Voldemort is, and having me collapse from the pain isn’t going to do that.”

“It might be enough to show those fools like Dawlish that the Dark Lord is still alive.”

Harry shook his head again. “I want to do it the way we planned,” he said, and then he stepped away from Narcissa and advanced towards the gates. The November wind swirled around him, chasing withered leaves. He looked calm and content and every inch the prince that Narcissa had also raised Draco to be.

Narcissa smiled and followed him. Harry was already striding, his robes flaring around him. As he went, he raised his arm, and the spell that Narcissa had taught him to cast took off from the end of his wand, filling the air with what looked like a spray of black fountain-water.

There were gasps and shrieks from inside the castle. They would see the spell there as black falling stars, and hear Harry’s roaring voice.

“ _Voldemort! Come to me, you coward_!”

The front doors of the castle banged open as professors began to run out. Narcissa ignored them, her gaze fastened on her foster son. Harry had braced himself. The spell would sound with equal force and violence in the ears of the one it was meant to summon.

And if Voldemort resembled the monster Narcissa had known during the first war, he would never be alone. He would have other Death Eaters with him, and in the face of such a taunt, he would be forced to respond.

It took longer than it should have, enough for Narcissa to wonder if Voldemort was intelligent enough not to reveal his existence to the Ministry after all. But rage won past his base cunning. He appeared with several black-cloaked figures behind him, their white masks gleaming. He paced forwards, his eyes glaring at Harry. His long pale hair fell over the side of his head, and someone screamed behind her.

 _How can they think he looks frightening, instead of ridiculous?_ Narcissa wondered, but that was one of the mysteries it wasn’t her duty to solve. She watched as Voldemort came to a stop in front of Harry and bent down, his hands twitching around his wand.

“You summoned me to kill you?”

“No, I summoned you to do this,” Harry said, and tossed the potion that Narcissa had spent most of the last fortnight researching and brewing all over him.

Voldemort stepped back with a snarl. His pale hair was swaying now and tinged with red, and Narcissa smiled. The potion was working as it was meant to, then, sliding down Voldemort’s skin and delving into the cracks in it.

“I am going to kill you for this.” Voldemort’s voice had deepened to a low, dangerous hissing. He was looking at both of them, Narcissa realized, even though she stood a fair distance behind Harry.

“I thought you might try,” Narcissa said, and then watched as a red cloud began to form behind Voldemort’s head. “But I think you’ll be too busy dealing with the results of the potion.”

Voldemort’s mouth went on opening, and then he screamed. He fell to his knees and _screamed_ , and the Death Eaters behind him backed away and aimed their wands uncertainly at Harry. One of them might have managed to get in a strike; Harry was laughing so hard that a curse could have struck his shoulder or his collarbone or something else. But Narcissa cast one of her own flexible shields on the air in front of Harry, and then all was well.

She would have a talk about that with him later, though, Narcissa thought, shaking her head as she watched the red cloud rising from Voldemort turn and swiftly make its way into the school. No matter _what_ was happening in front of one, that was no excuse for distraction.

The cloud began to grow and roil as it came into contact with the school’s walls. The tendrils went first through open windows, but it didn’t need them; anywhere a crack between the stones opened, the cloud could reach. Narcissa listened, and smiled a little as she heard the other screams of pain and terror. The cloud wouldn’t permanently hurt the students Marked with allegiance to Voldemort, but part of the _point_ was that they would suffer somewhat. Otherwise, what was to keep more idiots from surrendering themselves to the Mark?

The cloud abruptly snapped back together again, and a small number of Slytherin students came with it, along with one or two Ravenclaws and a Gryffindor that Narcissa recognized from the year above Harry’s. She raised her eyebrows. Well, best to eliminate the threat before it showed its fangs.

The scarlet mist that filled the air surrounded the kneeling students and the still-screaming Voldemort, then gave a snap like the sound of a whip. Their left sleeves went flying back, and the Marks lay exposed. Voldemort lifted his head like a dog at that, and stopped screaming to say, “Stop them!”

But since none of his followers had any idea what was going on, they simply hesitated, and by then, the cloud’s magic had had time to work.

The red tendrils cocooned the exposed Dark Marks in shining scarlet, and then the Marks began to dissolve and bleed down the students’ arms like dripping paint. Narcissa relaxed a little. The cloud was based on the potion she had given Severus to deaden the pain of the Mark, but she’d altered it so that it could hopefully remove the brand in Voldemort’s presence and stuff the magic back into him. It seemed _that_ wish was being granted, at least.

“No! Stop them!”

Now the Death Eaters knew what Voldemort wanted them to do, but it was obvious they were even more useless than Narcissa had thought. They waved their wands and chanted a few ineffective spells. The students who had taken the Dark Marks had stopped screaming and just watched the blank ink—or blood, or pure necromantic magic—collecting on the ground. Narcissa wrinkled her nose as she smelled the holes of rotting grass the magic from the Marks promptly made. The black magic finally sprang up and streamed back to Voldemort, slamming into him and spinning him around on his knees, making him snarl.

There was a moment’s tense, trembling balance. Then it dissolved into chaos. Most of the students who had taken the Marks were trying to get to the castle, even the Slytherins, proving that they had no idea what they’d volunteered for. Voldemort was on his feet, waving his arms around, and firing off curses at his own followers as often as at anyone else. The prefects outside were trying to herd members of their own Houses to safety. Minerva was storming straight for the gates.

“What the hell is that?”

That was Dawlish’s faint voice, right beside her ear. Narcissa grinned viciously at nothing, and turned around in time to give Dawlish a blinking, startled glance. “That’s Voldemort. Didn’t you know what he looked like? Or, well, I suppose it’s a shock to see what he looks like now that he’s altered his body with Dark magic,” she added, as if conscientiously.

“Voldemort is dead,” Dawlish whispered, not looking away from the spectacle of Voldemort torturing a masked Death Eater with the Cruciatus Curse.

“Well, then there’s someone doing a good imitation of him,” Narcissa said.

As if called by the sound of her words, Voldemort finished inflicting pain on the hapless who deserved it and swung around. His eyes met hers, and his mouth opened in a silent snarl of rage. Narcissa was immensely amused to observe that it looked as if he had her teeth.

“I am going to _kill_ you, Potter!”

“No, you’re not,” Harry said, and faded abruptly from sight.

Narcissa smiled. He’d _also_ had lessons this summer in using his Invisibility Cloak properly, so that it shielded his entire body. And from the way Voldemort began randomly casting Dark spells, he couldn’t see through it the way some people could.

Narcissa couldn’t let the Dark Arts continue, though. Someone might get hurt, and then the papers would find a way to turn that back on Harry and paint it as his fault for summoning Voldemort. She drew her own wand and cast a shield that reflected the Entrail-Expelling Curse back on a Death Eater.

Voldemort stared at her like a maddened owl who had decided to adopt a Muggle hairstyle.

“You will die,” he said.

“Oh, eventually,” said Narcissa. Then she cast another spell, one that she kept carefully non-verbal, since Dawlish and other interesting witnesses were there. It would look exactly like the red light of a Stunner as it soared across the grass between them and struck Voldemort full on in the chest.

Would _look_ like. But was _not_.

Narcissa watched in some satisfaction as Voldemort clutched at his chest for a long moment afterwards. His eyes shone like rubies, and his mouth opened further and further, and he reminded Narcissa of a toy Bellatrix had had when they were younger, a mechanical dog whose jaw she’d broken on the first day.

Then he screamed.

But he screamed as he vanished, and most of the remaining Death Eaters panicked and ran when they realized that their leader was gone, and the scene was abruptly calm again. Narcissa sighed as her head slowly drooped, and looked around for Harry.

Harry, visible again at her side, was staring at her as if he had no idea what the plan had been, what they’d discussed. But when she smiled at him, he smiled back and gave her an exhausted little wave before dropping straight down to the grass.

Draco ran from behind an older mass of Slytherin students then, and gathered Harry in as if he would cradle him and keep him safe forever. A few seconds later, he seemed to realize that the grass wasn’t the best way to do that. He turned and cast one of the charms that would lighten Harry’s weight, then dashed towards the hospital wing

Narcissa nodded and began to follow. But Dawlish interrupted her, gripping her arm. “We need to talk,” he said, all but snarling.

“If we must,” said Narcissa, holding his eyes. “But for the moment, I have two sons to attend to.” And she shook off Dawlish’s grip and followed Draco and Harry to the hospital wing.

*

“Harry will be fine.” Madam Pomfrey’s voice was trembling a little as she made her diagnosis. “It was more the effort of casting the spell that you—told me about that drained him, not everything else he did.”

“Ah, I’m glad,” said Narcissa simply, and sat down next to the bed. Harry’s face was pale, but that wasn’t unusual for him, and neither was the inflamed red of the scar on his brow. She smoothed his hair back and watched him attentively as he breathed.

“How—how did he know a spell like that?”

Narcissa smiled and looked up. “Well, you must remember that Harry is no longer a parentless Gryffindor who has to go back to his awful Muggle relatives during the summers. We accepted him into our home, and that means that we’re going to teach him a good deal about ways to protect himself.”

Madam Pomfrey paused with her hand smoothing down the sheet. Then she looked up and said, “And he needs to know how to handle himself if he’s going to fight You-Know-Who.”

“Voldemort.”

The mediwitch flinched and retreated. Narcissa shook her head and faced Harry again. Draco met her eyes worriedly from the other side of the bed.

“Is he really going to be all right?”

This time, Narcissa considered herself within her rights to give her blood son a chiding look. “Draco, you were there when we discussed this spell. Harry knew the risks, and he chose to brave them anyway. Of _course_ he’s going to be all right. As though I would let my foster son come to harm.”

Draco’s eyes flickered uncertainly, and he looked down and then nodded. Narcissa sighed and reached across the space between them to take his hand.

“What made you think otherwise?”

“The way his scar looks.”

Narcissa shrugged. “There’s still not much that we understand about that scar,” she said, and knew Draco would understand that she was speaking of the Horcrux connection, which she wasn’t about to mention with a nosy mediwitch potentially listening in. “But I think it makes sense for it to look that way after he opposed one of Voldemort’s plans.”

“Is he in any pain right now?”

“With the sleeping potions and the pain ones that have been dripped down his throat? No.”

Draco swallowed and nodded. Then he reached out and squeezed Harry’s hand, with a little surreptitious motion that Narcissa knew wasn’t meant to hide it from her. She nodded to Draco. It was not the way she would have reacted to Lucius being wounded, but then, she was not her son, and there was no need for them to resemble each other so closely.

“There will still be some people who might try to deny that he’s back,” Draco finally said, when the sound of Harry’s breathing had probably become oppressive to him. It was not oppressive to Narcissa. No sound that meant someone she loved was alive ever could be.

“Voldemort? Yes, they might try.”

“But aren’t you worried about that?”

Narcissa smiled. “The ones who do that are truly the deluded ones, and we won’t be able to reach them no matter what we do. But before, with the confrontation in the graveyard, the only ones besides us who saw were the Death Eaters who had every reason to keep their presence secret. Now we have not only the students whose Dark Marks were stripped away, but most of the professors in the school, and many other students as well. Now they can convince the reasonable ones who had reasonable doubt.” _And we have the ones Sirius will tell, when the mirror’s reflection spreads._

Draco swallowed. Narcissa waited for him to confess what was bothering him. The hospital wing really was silent except for the sound of Harry’s breathing. Madam Pomfrey was apparently brewing potions quietly, or sitting there with her head in her hands, perhaps.

“I can’t get over what a risk he took,” Draco said. “What I felt when he was standing there in front of the gates with Voldemort looming over him—he could have died.”

“I know.”

“But you _let_ him take the risk?”

“He will never be safe as long as Voldemort survives,” Narcissa told Draco, and watched the way that the red flush in Harry’s scar seemed to dim a little. “What I can do is give him the tools to make his own decisions and defend himself. And that’s what I’m doing. He’s the one who thought we had to take a risk to show people that Voldemort was back.”

Draco was quiet some more. Then he said, “I don’t think I can let him do that.”

“You can’t stand in his way.”

“I mean—I have to defend him some _other_ way. I have to lessen the risk for him without standing back and letting him take it.”

“As long as you don’t interfere when he does decide to risk himself,” Narcissa cautioned her son. She knew the relationship between her and Lucius would never have worked if he had tried to block her own risk-taking and decisions.

“No. But—enough to mean that he might not have to take as many risks in the future.”

“Acceptable.”

Draco nodded and went on staring at Harry’s silent form on the bed. Meanwhile, someone knocked on the door of the hospital wing. Narcissa looked up, ready to send the inquirer to the back room where Madam Pomfrey might be brooding, if necessary.

But it was Dawlish, who looked at her without smiling and said, “Professor Malfoy. We should talk.”


	6. Part Six

“I want to know who that person really was.”

Narcissa smiled a little. She had wondered if the demonstration would manage to pierce Dawlish’s thick skull, and she still thought it might, given world enough and time. But it was clear that he had decided the simpler explanation was that she was playing a trick on him. She sighed. “It was Voldemort.”

“No, it wasn’t.”

“Why not?”

Dawlish spluttered and waved his arms around as if he hadn’t expected a direct attack like that. Narcissa was glad that she had raised a Silencing Charm around them before this conversation started. Dawlish would probably have woken up Harry otherwise. “You-Know-Who wouldn’t look like that!”

“He would if he took some of my blood and accidentally made it the cornerstone of the ritual that gave him his body back, instead of Harry’s blood. Didn’t he look like me?”

Dawlish stood there as if he didn’t know how to answer. Narcissa concealed a smile. On the one hand, she knew that Voldemort _did_ look like her, and Dawlish wasn’t a fool; he would be able to see the resemblance.

On the other hand, Voldemort was ugly, and Dawlish’s training had to be barking at him about being rude to a woman of high position.

“He did, a little,” Dawlish conceded, and then added quickly, “But I’m sure that’s someone you just persuaded to dress up and act the part.”

“Why?” Narcissa was genuinely curious what Dawlish thought she would have to gain from that.

“Because—because it’s impossible for You-Know-Who to be back! He’s dead! Your son killed him all those years ago!”

Narcissa sighed. She was sorry, for the first time, that she had killed Dumbledore. He could have provided confirmation that Voldemort had been around during Harry’s first year in wraith form. But it was possible that Minerva had some of the same memories, at least of Dumbledore telling her the truth about the wraith. “That did not happen. I can show you Pensieve memories that would—”

“No, it’s a _trick_! That’s exactly what the Ministry warned us to beware of. I just didn’t think that you would lie about something like this, Professor Malfoy.” Dawlish shook his head, his face red with stubbornness, and drew away from her. “I thought you wouldn’t go to such lengths to make your son look good.”

“It’s not about making him look good, and all about making sure that people survive when Voldemort returns,” Narcissa said, quiet, intense, willing Dawlish to listen. He wasn’t important in and of himself, but for the people he represented, the ones who she would have to persuade to their side. Right now, this was a resounding failure. “My son first of all, but you saw those students with the Dark Mark on their arms. My son did this partially so that Marked students in the school couldn’t pose a danger to him or other students.”

“The real Dark Mark can’t be removed by any means known.” Dawlish gave her a smug, smarmy smile. “You ought to know that, Professor _Malfoy_. After all, your husband was under the Imperius but he still hasn’t managed to take the Mark off his arm, has he?”

“Because Voldemort was there, we were able to force the magic back into him, something obviously impossible when he’d been reduced to a wraith and wasn’t physically present at—”

“This is all a trick,” said Dawlish, and stuck his nose up in the air. “I’m going to tell the Ministry that you pulled a trick and did it to convince me, and you injured innocent students are this school.”

“Innocent, when they had the Mark?”

“The real Mark can’t be removed,” Dawlish repeated obstinately. “That means they must have been tattoos. Or a spell that _you_ cast. I’m going to report that you did this, and you also had something to do with Madam Umbridge’s disappearance.”

“Based on what evidence?”

“That you’re powerful, and uncontrolled.” For an instant, Dawlish’s gaze went past her towards the door of the hospital wing. “And you’re running around sheltering someone who’s _also_ powerful and uncontrolled.”

Narcissa sighed. “I didn’t want to do this, you know,” she told Dawlish, shaking her head. “I wouldn’t have if you’d stuck to threatening me. I can remain calm in the face of those threats, I really can.”

She flicked her wand out, blocked the defensive spell that Dawlish tried to cast in his shock, and pinned his sleeve to the wall with a thrown dagger. “But you can’t threaten _my son_ ,” she finished, and Dawlish had a moment to stare at her in horror before she added, “ _Imperio_.”

The spell swept over Dawlish and made his jaw fall slightly open and his eyes glaze. Narcissa watched him as she cast the spell that would tell her if anyone else was around and observing her. She got a clear, shimmering sparkle as a result, which meant no one was.

Narcissa nodded. She had perfected her use of the Imperius Curse until it was hard to tell that someone was under her control at all, but she needed some extra moments to work on it.

Carefully, she cast binding spells on Dawlish until his buried fear at the fact that he knew something was happening subsided and she could glance into his eyes and use Legilimency easily. Then she began to speak, pausing after each sentence so that it would have a chance to sink deep into Dawlish’s mind and tie him to her desires.

“You will not seek to arrest or threaten Harry Potter. You will not seek to arrest or threaten Draco Malfoy. You will not seek to arrest or threaten Lucius Malfoy. You will not seek to arrest or threaten Narcissa Malfoy. If involved in an expedition to arrest them or ordered to arrest them, you will come up with an excuse to delay it or sabotage the mission that sounds as little like an excuse as possible. If you hear a credible threat against them from the Minister or anyone else, you will inform Narcissa Malfoy of the threat at once by owl. You will forget about the owl that moment you have sent it. You will also take her suggestions as serious ones that you should give due consideration to.

“You will return to the Ministry and state that you have evidence to your satisfaction that Dolores Umbridge was killed by a Death Eater who gained entrance to the school due to the Ministry’s lax policy of setting protections. You will argue that Aurors should be sent to Hogwarts to offer some spells of their own that would defend entrances and exits and tell the Aurors when anyone who bears the Dark Mark enters. You will also argue that they should use the Dark Mark of a convicted Death Eater to set up that warning spell. You will belittle and cut down anyone who suggests using Lucius Malfoy’s Dark Mark.

“You will also tell people that, in your opinion, Harry Potter is right about You-Know-Who’s return. You will tell this only to people who have indicated they might be sympathetic to such a view. You will use the Memory Charm on anyone who, when you tell this to them, threatens to go and tell the Minister or anyone else.

“In other matters, use your discretion. If it seems to your unbiased judgment that another threat has arisen that Narcissa Malfoy should know about, send her an anonymous owl, which you will immediately forget about.”

Narcissa waited until she could feel the slight twitch of his thoughts that indicated he had indeed been affected by the words sinking into his mind and changing him. Then she Summoned back the dagger and released him from the spell. Dawlish staggered and stared at her. One of his hands rose as though he was going to touch his temple and smooth out a lump there.

“Wh—what happened?”

Narcissa assumed an expression of concern and frowned at him. “You came in looking rather pale and as though you were about to fall over, Auror Dawlish. Did witnessing the events this afternoon tire you?”

“They frightened me,” said Dawlish, in a much more normal, raw tone than Narcissa had heard from him since he arrived. She hadn’t actually told him that he should always tell the truth to her, but with the bindings on his mind now, it would be hard to lie. She watched him shake his head a little and his face grow whiter. “I suppose we can’t really deny that You-Know-Who is back if we actually saw him, can we?”

“No. Though I suppose the _Daily Prophet_ will still try.”

“Then they can talk to me. The word of an experienced Auror ought to be worth more than the word of an _in_ experienced boy.”

Narcissa smiled. “I appreciate your willingness to spread the word, Auror Dawlish. Let me know if I can do anything to help.”

“Not right now, Narcissa.” Dawlish gave her the slightest of patronizing smiles. “I think this effort should be left up to professionals.” And he strode away, his boots stomping harder than ever on the floor, as if he wanted to make the whole school feel the force of his conviction.

Narcissa cast a Silencing Charm around herself, then leaned against the wall and laughed until her throat was dry.

*

“Those were our students that you put at risk.”

“I believe we’ve discussed before that you put Harry at risk on a regular basis.” Narcissa folded up her robes and turned around, one eyebrow rising as she considered the Headmistress in her doorway. “He only did something that, in the end, _spared_ those students from serving the monster they dedicated their lives to.”

“He can’t have done it all by himself.”

Narcissa sighed. “You know very little about my foster son.”

“I _know_ that it was you who brewed that potion.”

“And if you can identify illegal ingredients or something else I did wrong while brewing it, then perhaps you can condemn me.” Narcissa locked the trunk. They were going home to spend Christmas at Malfoy Manor, and she was determined that no curious fingers would find the gifts she had purchased for Draco and Harry in Hogsmeade before she was ready. “Really, Minerva. What do you expect me to say? That I’m going to go and surrender myself to Aurors right this instant?”

Minerva folded her arms. She looked old and small and hunched-in. Narcissa wondered, not for the first time, if she should have more closely manipulated the succession after Dumbledore died. She had allowed his chosen successor to take his place, but she could have done something else.

_Perhaps I shall have to soon._

“It’s dangerous,” Minerva whispered. “I don’t think the professor most dangerous for our students here was Umbridge.”

Narcissa held herself rigid, so that the insult could pass through her and into the distance like one of the many poisons she had an immunity to. Then she shook her head. She would not depose Minerva simply because of a threat. “You understand nothing about what Umbridge and the Ministry wanted, or you wouldn’t say that.”

“Then suppose you _tell_ me!”

“They wanted an entire generation of children to grow up in ignorance. Given the problems before this with Hogwarts losing a Defense teacher every year, they’ve largely got their wish, but now Voldemort’s return is threatening that. Even having a few people believe Harry is too much. I am protective of my sons, Minerva. I am also trying to be the best Astronomy professor I can, and neutralize a threat that would affect _all_ our students’ lives. And for these efforts, I receive stares and words so bitter that I think you would prefer to have Dolores back.”

“I understood how to counter Dolores. I don’t understand how to counter you.”

“Why do you think you have to?” Narcissa tried to make her voice gentle. Minerva sounded so bitter and lost and hopeless. “What is the harm you think I’ll do your students while I’m here?”

“You’ve already shown it.”

“And those Marked students _wouldn’t_ have made others’ lives miserable? Perhaps even tortured or killed someone on Voldemort’s command?”

“They’re still young—”

“But not innocent.” Narcissa burned, for the first time in years, to tell a stranger of the discipline, and what she had already mastered and learned how to do by such an age. Or what Harry knew now.

But as with Minerva’s earlier insult, sharp words weren’t worth putting all of her plans at risk. She only shook her head. “It’s done. The Marks are gone.”

 

“And you remain here, to endanger them still.”

Narcissa looked carefully into Minerva’s eyes. “Are you telling me that I’m no longer welcome here after the holidays?”

“I’m saying that you should only plan on holding the post for a year. I’ll begin looking for someone in the next term, and I expect to have them hired by the time that summer arrives.”

“If you wish,” Narcissa said neutrally. While being at Hogwarts as a professor to watch over her boys was useful, she did sometimes find that the duties of teaching and marking interfered with her protection of them. She could find other ways to visit and guard them if Minerva insisted on sacking her.

“I wish I knew how to neutralize you,” Minerva muttered again, and wandered away looking every inch Dumbledore’s age. Narcissa shook her head, and went to the Floo to open it and tell the house-elves they would be home soon.

_Not replaceable yet. But she is becoming tiresome._

*

“Dearest.”

Lucius was flushing and shifting from foot to foot. Narcissa simply watched him for a moment. He knew better than to show in front of Draco and Harry how openly he desired her.

Which meant that what he was showing now was not simple desire. It was something else. She crooked her fingers at Harry, and Harry gave her one questioning glance and then led Draco upstairs, chattering lightly all the while of whether they should stop supporting the Falmouth Falcons since they’d lost their last game. Draco gave Harry a look that said he knew very well what was going on, but let himself be led.

Then Narcissa and Lucius were alone in the midst of their great drawing room, with mirrors on the wall that were testaments to Lucius’s vanity. Narcissa pushed a strand of her hair out of the way and eyed her husband. “Out with it.”

“What do you mean?”

“You’ve done something that you’re ashamed of, or at least something that you think might cause unacceptable consequences if I discover it,” Narcissa told him crisply. “And that is in itself unacceptable, Lucius, that you would try to lie to me. Tell me the truth, and it _might_ be that I’ll go easy on you.”

Lucius flinched. Then he slowly drew up his left sleeve. Narcissa expected to see the Dark Mark weeping and distended like a sore, or possibly inflamed, or cursed, or eating half his arm.

She did _not_ expect to see a great band of shimmering gold encircling the Mark. Narcissa grasped his arm and turned it. When she dared to brush a finger over the band of gold, it felt like skin. The only thing that marked it as different was the color.

She met Lucius’s eyes. He was shivering all over, and kept his eyes averted from her.

“Explain to me,” Narcissa whispered, “what is going on.”

While she was at Hogwarts, speaking to him mostly through the fire and occasional visits at home, it might have been easy to persuade himself that he was more frightened of Voldemort. Now Lucius shivered again and began to babble. “I think the blood that the Dark Lord took from you must have influenced it somehow. That’s the only thing I can think of. It—I would never feel any temptation to surrender to him no matter how he called me through the Mark, _never_. But I think that the blood—”

“You think that the blood _what_?”

“That the blood he took from you means that he also has control over the marriage vows that bind me to you,” Lucius whispered.

Narcissa stood still for a moment. Yes, it was true that the band of gold resembled a wedding ring. But there was one problem with Lucius’s idea. “Then he would have gained equal control over me, and been able to make _me_ feel loyalty to him. And drawn to him.” She knew Lucius hadn’t been with the Death Eaters who had followed Voldemort into defeat at Hogwarts. She would have sensed that at once. But he might have done other things. “What have you done?”

“A few raids.” Lucius bowed his head. “And I know that he hasn’t been able to compel your loyalty, Narcissa, but you have your discipline to help you resist him. And…”

“Yes?”

“You’ve always been stronger than me.” Lucius’s head bowed further. “He controlled me enough that I couldn’t inform you when I knew I would only see you for a few minutes. I think the way he was hurt when you and Harry drew him to Hogwarts and the fact that you’re staying longer this time have weakened his control.”

Narcissa gently drew Lucius into her arms and kissed his forehead, and then the gold skin around his Mark. It shimmered and sparked to her lips, but she ignored that. Lucius had admitted he needed her. That was all that was required to make her protect him.

“Poor darling. Of _course_ I will take care of it.”


	7. Part Seven

Narcissa leaned slowly forwards and considered the mirror that lay on the table before her. Sirius, hiding in the Forbidden Forest during Harry’s confrontation with Voldemort, had recorded the whole incident in this magical mirror. Narcissa had waited to do anything with it, not sure whether it would be needed when there were so many witnesses.

It looked now as if it would be needed. Fudge was hysterically insisting that Harry was still lying, and the _Daily Prophet_ went along with him—less, Narcissa thought, because of sycophancy than because conflict was good for its sales. And none of the witnesses at Hogwarts had spoken up in any numbers.

But Narcissa thought she had another way.

And it would tie into the beginning of her campaign to free Lucius from Voldemort’s influence, as well.

Narcissa stood, smiled, swirled her cloak around her shoulders, and strode for the fireplace. “Minister of Magic’s office!”

*

Fudge’s lackey, a thin, nervous woman whom Narcissa thought might have been hired because she looked the opposite of Umbridge in every way, didn’t keep Narcissa long in the plush waiting room. Malfoy money still greased enough of Fudge’s wheels to ensure that. Narcissa gave Fudge’s inquiring stare a smile of her own, and settled into place on the chair in front of his desk, inclining her head. “Hello, Minister. Are you well?”

“Of course, Mrs. Malfoy. Of course.” Fudge had started playing with the rim of his bowler hat. “You’re, er, here with a message from Lucius?”

Narcissa nearly chucked as she realized what was going on. Fudge thought she was here with a threat to withdraw monetary support. “Not at all,” she said, and smoothly crossed one leg over the other. Distracted and upset as he was, Fudge’s eyes followed the motion of her leg under her robe. “It’s my message.”

That got his attention enough to make him pay attention to her face, with some stops along the way. “Oh?”

Narcissa nodded, earnest and patient. “Yes. I wanted to talk to you about leaving my son alone.”

“I don’t think I’ve ever met young Draco for long,” Fudge said, and put his hat down to frown at her. “Can’t think of what I’ve done to him!”

“I meant my other son,” Narcissa said. Fudge maintained a facade of perfect blankness that Narcissa knew wasn’t put on. With an inward roll of her eyes only, she said delicately, “My foster son. Harry Potter.”

Fudge acquired a purple tinge around his mustache that spoke of no good health in his heart. Narcissa found herself regretting she hadn’t included a proviso in her Imperius Curse for Auror Dawlish about what to do if the Minister died of a heart attack. “Now, see _here._ The boy’s made a fool of himself, spreading these wild lies! Nothing I’ve done but tell the truth! He could have withdrawn the lies at any time.”

“And is what happened at Hogwarts another of those lies?”

“No one’s talking about what happened at Hogwarts.”

“On your instructions, I assume, Minister.”

Fudge gave her a smirk that had a good deal of the simper in it; he’d spent too long as a flunky to Lucius and the like. “Of course. It’s good to see that you understand how politics are played, Mrs. Malfoy. All you have to do is instruct your boy to withdraw the accusations. And then it’s over. Simple as that. Neat. Easy.”

“Easy,” Narcissa echoed softly. “Really.”

“Of course it is.” Fudge leaned towards her and shook his head. “If you’ve been teaching the boy to play politics, better to teach him to stay in the background. He’s not loyal to the Minister. Can never get ahead if he isn’t. Tell him so, would you?”

“I would tell him so if it were true.”

Fudge’s face turned from tomato to plum to some color on the far side of purple. “You presume a great deal, Mrs. Malfoy. _Too_ much! I have a mind to have the Aurors in here. Lucius was good about the lessons that he needed to learn. Sounds like you might need to learn, too.”

Narcissa ignored the words. Fudge had never threatened Lucius with being arrested for his Dark Mark. If anything, he had taken the opposite tactic, enjoying Malfoy money too much. “I am merely going to emphasize two things, Minister. The first is that Lucius is not me. When a mother wants her son left alone, it’s more important than when a father does, wouldn’t you agree?”

“I’m sure we can all agree that fathers love their sons, too, but when their sons have done something _wrong_ —”

“And the next,” Narcissa said, standing, “is how weak you look attacking a fifteen-year-old through the press. You might think about that.”

As she had thought would happen, Fudge’s face rapidly darkened into purple again. “Mrs. _Malfoy_ ,” he said sternly, and then seemed to recover and shook his head and softened his voice. “No one seems to think so so far, do they? All listening to me. All following me. _You_ might think about _that_.”

“You haven’t faced me yet,” said Narcissa simply, and walked out of the office.

He didn’t call her back. He didn’t have that much political sense, Narcissa thought as she trailed towards the lifts, shaking her own head, even though he’d been in office for years. It seemed that Malfoy money and other bribes had cushioned him so much that he’d never learned what he needed to know.

Narcissa thought her way kinder. At least she believed in _educating_ the helpless.

She stepped through the lift door into the Atrium, and spent a few minutes standing in quiet attention, scanning the available victims, before she chose one who looked susceptible: a tall dark-skinned Auror with lines around his mouth and near his eyes that indicated sentiment. Narcissa bowed her head and trailed towards him, dabbing at her eyes with her handkerchief. She ducked as she passed him, apparently trying to avoid attention.

A gentle hand closed on her arm. The Aurors noticed such evasive maneuvers, of course, which was why Narcissa never practiced them when she was on a kill and Aurors were nearby. “I couldn’t help noticing you were crying, madam,” he said gently. “Is anything wrong?”

Narcissa raised her stricken eyes. The Auror had a bald head, but anxious eyes, and she managed a tremulous smile. “It’s just that my—child is in danger,” she said, and let her voice break. “And no one will help.”

“ _No_ one?” The Auror drew towards her. “How’s this, madam?”

“Because the one he’s in danger from,” said Narcissa, and lowered her voice this time, “is the Minister himself.”

The man’s eyes widened. Then he nodded as if that explained things, or maybe he’d recognized her as Harry Potter’s foster mother. When he darted a glance around, Narcissa thought it might be both.

He turned back to her and smiled a little. “My name’s Auror Kingsley Shacklebolt. Do you want to go to this café I know to talk about your problem? It seems like we might have a lot in common.”

“Narcissa Malfoy,” said Narcissa, and ignored the way his eyes widened. It was the Minister being the cause of the danger and not recognizing her that had put him in his mood, then. “Thank you.”

*

“But why would the Minister care so much about keeping your boy under control?”

Narcissa smiled at Shacklebolt and carefully ate a small croissant. It seemed the cafe was run by an émigré from France and did the food well, unlike the inferior imitations that usually went by the same name in Britain. “Because he knows Harry could be a challenge to his political power if enough people believed him. And, of course, he doesn’t want to deploy the resources and people he would need to if Voldemort is really back.”

“You don’t fear to say his name.”

“Anyone who threatens my son is going to hear his name spoken by me _plenty_ of times.”

Shacklebolt smiled, but there was a tightness to the lines around his mouth that told her how troubled he was. “You do have proof of the attack, besides the witness accounts? And removing the Dark Mark from the students’ arms? Most of them are underage, so we couldn’t use Veritaserum on them anyway.”

“Yes. I have a Pensieve memory.” Narcissa saw no reason at the moment to explain the difference between the mirror Sirius had used to record the attack and an actual Pensieve. “Would that do?”

Shacklebolt frowned now. “It might. But it would be hard to get everyone who needs to see it near enough _to_ see it, if you see what I mean.”

“I do.” Narcissa patted at her mouth with a napkin and then put it down. “But if we could spread the Pensieve memory around and give it to more people…”

Shacklebolt’s eyebrows rose. “You could _do_ that?”

“With the special kind of instrument that I have, yes.” It was true. Narcissa didn’t see the point in lying to people who weren’t actively hostile to her and her family.

“Then perhaps we could do something.”

Shacklebolt sat silent for a long time after that. Narcissa didn’t bother him. The café’s food was good enough that she found several more delicate things to eat, and broke the fruit and dipped nearly everything into the chocolate.

“Yes, all right,” Shacklebolt finally said. “There’s one meeting of the Wizengamot open to the public next month. The Minister’s going to attend it because he always does. You think that you could show this memory there? There’s going to be lots of influential people who could see it and be swayed one way or the other.”

Narcissa smiled. “What would I have to do?”

*

“Yeah, no problem,” Sirius was saying the next time Narcissa looked up from her list of his notes. The mirror he had recorded the confounding of Voldemort with lay on the table, almost throbbing as crystalline magic poured out of it and into a bowl of water. “We can do this. But can we transfer the Horcrux to a portrait?”

“You’re the one who came up with the theory. And your notes seem sound.”

“But they’re only notes. I don’t know that I really want to gamble with Harry’s life with them.”

Narcissa reached out and patted her cousin’s arm. “So many other people are gambling with his life. At least you’re giving him the chance to live past the end that I think Dumbledore must have been envisioning for him.” There was no doubt in Narcissa’s mind that Dumbledore would have known Harry was a Horcrux, and no doubt what he had planned to do with that knowledge, either. Dumbledore liked the dramatic gesture, the grand notion. The sacrifice of a child he’d left to grow up in the Muggle world was not only not beyond him, it would fit into his plans.

Sirius was quiet for long enough that Narcissa nearly went back to copying out the letters that she would send to the reporters and other people she wanted at the Wizengamot meeting to witness this particular memory. Then he asked, a little hoarsely, “You—you think that he’ll survive this?”

“I would never do anything that he would not survive. Regardless of how little he likes the lesson at the time.”

“Oh.”

When the mirror was done and the bowl of water glowed with the crystal, Narcissa put down her quill and leaned over it. She smiled. Yes, this was as clear as a Pensieve memory, but it was playing on the shimmering surface without needing to plunge her head into it. It should work exactly as the books of the Black library Sirius had found it in said it should work. “You are a genius, Sirius.”

“I’m concerned for Harry.”

“ _And_ a genius,” Narcissa teased, but she regretted it when she saw the tight lines forming around Sirius’s mouth and eyes. “He will live.”

“How can you know?”

“Because I swear it.”

Sirius looked up at her. There was so much darkness in his eyes that Narcissa was tempted to swear it again. But she could not give _more_ than her word. So she held his eyes, and after a long moment Sirius exhaled and let his head fall forwards onto his hands.

“Thank you.”

Narcissa patted his shoulder. “You’re not the first person to have found out how secure life is when you trust in me.”

*

Narcissa glanced up when Draco walked carefully into the room. He was stopping every so often to lean against the wall. For a moment, she wondered if he had got into his father’s Firewhisky the night before for a post-Christmas celebration, and not been sober enough yet to cast a Sobriety Charm.

But then she saw something else about the way he was limping, and how he favored his bum as he sat down, and simply returned to her breakfast without a word. There were things she did _not_ need to know about her son’s life.

“Mother?”

 _Unless he involves me in them._ Narcissa made sure that Harry was not sitting at the table, and then gave all her attention to Draco. “Yes, darling?”

He winced at the address, but met her eyes firmly. “How did you know that you were in love with Father?”

 _Ah. A related question._ Narcissa sipped her tea slowly. “I don’t know if there was one moment,” she said at last. “It was a process. We both saw something in each other that we needed, of course. Otherwise, our parents would never have consented to the marriage, or wanted us married in the first place. But when we got beyond the need, I started seeing things I liked, as well. I was happy to stay with him, in the end.”

“But what if you don’t fall in love like that at _all_?”

“Everyone falls in love in their own way, Draco.”

Draco frowned at her beneath a curl of hair that she had thought had stopped being so rebellious long ago. Then again, he had hardly spent an ordinary night last night. “You’re not helping, Mother.”

“You know that we’re not the same person, Draco. I can give you advice, but not the truth of your own heart. Do you have some reason to doubt that you’re in love?”

Draco continued looking down at the table. His cheeks got redder and redder. Then he said, so softly that Narcissa could have ignored it if she wanted to and undoubtedly would have if she was Lucius, “No.”

Narcissa smiled and went back to her tea, and the preparations that she would need to make for the Wizengamot meeting.

*

“Thank you for allowing me to attend.”

Narcissa spoke to the Wizengamot members as well as the reporters she had invited. Some of the older witches and wizards looked disgruntled at the presence of other people in the room. Shacklebolt stood near the doors and looked straight ahead as befit an Auror on guard for the meeting, but Narcissa knew she wasn’t imagining his near-smile.

Fudge was purple.

“What is the _meaning_ of this, Mrs. Malfoy?” he declared, waving his finger around. Narcissa thought he should be careful where he was pointing that thing. “Do you _intend_ to embarrass yourself on the world stage?”

“The world stage? At a Wizengamot meeting?”

Sometimes the moment was right, _everything_ about the moment, from the words one spoke to the words one’s opponent spoke to the people listening to the quality of the silence. In the echo of her words, Fudge turned as brilliant a purple as a Hungarian Horntail’s belly scales.

Narcissa turned and picked up the crystal bowl that Sirius had given her. “And _this_ is the point,” she continued gravely, and poured the water mingled with the mirror memory out.

Instead of tumbling to the floor, the water curled and foamed about halfway between the bowl and the floor, and then reared up in a glittering crystalline cascade. Narcissa found herself stunned at how clear the images were, and she had _been_ there. Voldemort’s glaring face was pure white. The Dark Marks bleeding off the students’ arms were shimmering black, almost with the colors of a starling’s wing. The brown of the Forbidden Forest where Sirius had hidden, holding the mirror up, looked as rich as honey.

When the memory finished, Narcissa folded her hands and turned back to the Wizengamot. “How are we going to deal with Voldemort’s return?”

Voices exploded, but mostly at her use of the beast’s name, and not disputing what they had seen. Narcissa smiled. They were discussing battle strategies against the right enemy now, and not against a fifteen-year-old boy.

She caught Fudge’s eye. He was glaring with such malevolence that she wouldn’t have been surprised at a transformation into that Hungarian Horntail.

 _You will not harm my son,_ Narcissa thought, and then, more idly, _Perhaps it is time wizarding Britain has a new Minister._


	8. Part Eight

The owl fluttered around her bed-curtains and shrieked in her ear. Narcissa sat up, extending one hand so that she could find her wand. Agitated owls sometimes attacked the humans they were meant to deliver the letters to.

But this one only landed on her arm and extended a foot, hooting softly. Narcissa removed the letter and frowned at the writing, which she didn’t recognize. But the signature at the bottom, when she unfolded it, was Dawlish’s.

_Minister Fudge is gathering up a special task force to go after Harry Potter. He says they’ll arrive at Hogwarts at midnight._

It was twenty minutes to midnight when Narcissa flicked her wand and lit the crystal globe next to her bed. She narrowed her eyes for a moment. Then she stood and began dressing in the appropriate battle-robes, not hurrying. She would not _allow_ news like this to hurry her.

Into the pockets of the robes went several vials of important potions, a few of the devices that she used in her career as an assassin, and something special that she had saved up to use on Aurors. A rope draped across her shoulder. Narcissa tucked her wand into its holster against her side and paused for a moment. But nothing else occurred to her as something she needed.

She slid silently out the window of her quarters and used a rope to climb most of the way to Gryffindor Tower. She ended up going through a lower window, picking her way through the bedroom filled with snoring first-year boys, and taking her place next to the portrait hole. There was a small chance that the Aurors would try to come up the outside of the Tower to Harry’s window instead, but Narcissa had set alarms there when she first arrived to be the Astronomy professor.

Then she waited.

*

At five minutes after midnight, she heard the tread of footsteps outside the portrait of the Fat Lady. Narcissa silently coiled the rope around her arm and cast a spell that made the stones waver and glow and part like water to her sight.

The task force was six Aurors and a small woman in the robes of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement. Narcissa suspected she was there to oversee the Aurors and lend an air of legitimacy to the enterprise.

Narcissa wanted to sneer. But she had no time for such nonsense, so she kept watching through the spell as the small woman bustled around the Aurors, telling them in a low voice that they were only to attack Harry Potter, no one else.

“The Minister does not want families in good standing to have the right to complain about how their children are treated,” she said in a stern voice, and paused to stare into the face of one Auror who might be as intelligent as Goyle on a good day. “Understand?”

“Yes, Madam Comet,” said the Auror in a tone of long-suffering.

 _Comet._ Narcissa had heard of her, as a sort of assistant to Amelia Bones. She wanted to shake her head at the waste of time and talent. Miranda Comet had potential, connections, and allies. That she would choose to follow the Minister in such a foolish task suggested that perhaps Madam Bones had made one of her rare mistakes.

It would not keep Narcissa from killing her.

She watched as the Aurors lined up opposite the portrait hole. The Fat Lady had long since fled from her picture, a sensible thing to have done (and which made Narcissa wonder if, in life, she had actually been Sorted into some House other than Gryffindor). The Aurors aimed their wands and braced themselves, counting down under their breaths. They would hit the wall with a combined blast of spells when they reached ten, Narcissa was sure.

Narcissa struck before then, spilling a potion at her feet and casting a complex illusion charm on the rope she carried and swung towards the wall, as well as a _Sonorus_ Charm on her voice and another spell that would prevent noise from traveling up the stairs of the common room.

“WHO DARES DISTURB THE SANCTITY OF MY HOUSE?”

The Aurors lost their concentration and gaped like fools as Narcissa’s illusion stepped through the wall. It wasn’t hard to imitate the hard features and harsh blue eyes of Godric Gryffindor, famous from a painting (not a portrait) that had hung on the wall of every Headmaster. And if her disguised voice didn’t sound like his in life, well, _no one_ knew what Gryffindor’s voice had sounded like in life. It was enough to see him stepping towards the Aurors and looming menacingly over them, as large as a Cerberus.

Madam Comet’s mouth dropped open, and she looked as though she didn’t know how to speak anymore. Narcissa’s illusion turned and glared at several of the Aurors, while Narcissa moved the rope carefully in several directions, controlling the way the giant Gryffindor cocked his head and folded his arms.

“We—this can’t be real,” blurted one of the Aurors.

“Of course it isn’t real.” Comet appeared to have recovered herself. She cast a Dispelling Charm in front of herself, powerful enough that the illusion would have wavered in most cases. But Narcissa had used the variation that focused on a physical object, and with that object on the other side of a wall, Comet had no chance of separating it from the illusion.

“It looks real,” said the Auror who Comet had been particularly scolding before.

“I am real.” Narcissa let her own voice fall so that it was no longer pure thunder where it emerged from the illusion’s mouth, and made the giant scowl at the Aurors. “I heard that you were coming here to destroy one of my Gryffindors. Is that _true_?” The last word shook a bit of dust down from the stones of the ceiling.

“Not destroy. Certainly not.” Madam Comet appeared to have recovered herself faster than any of the Aurors, perhaps because she was the only woman in the corridor. She smoothed down her official robes once and then took a step forwards and curtsied to the giant Gryffindor. Narcissa thought, from her face, that she still didn’t believe the illusion, but had chosen to go along with it for now. “Only arrest someone who is a danger to the Ministry and all our world, um, sir.”

“You need to bring six Aurors to arrest a student?”

Comet’s eyes narrowed a little, but she maintained the smooth mask. “This is an exceptionally dangerous student, sir. If you knew the full story, I think that even you would vote for making sure he’s removed from the school and loses the ability to influence other students.”

“Tell me who it is.”

Comet grimaced, but did so. “His name is Harry Potter, and I promise that he’s as much a disgrace to Gryffindor House as he is to every other—”

“The Harry Potter that fended off the man who claims to be the last descendant of Slytherin?” Narcissa laughed, a deep booming sound, and made the illusion fling his arms wide and shake his head. “What makes you think that I would _ever_ believe evil of him? He’s carrying the tradition of fighting evil and Slytherin House forwards into the future! One of very few students in my House who’s done so, in fact! You’ll have to come up with a better story than that.”

Comet gripped her wand tighter. This time, Narcissa felt the magic building up, rather than heard it. Comet was casting the spell nonverbally, and Narcissa was sure that it was the version of the charm that would dispel even an illusion tied to an object.

Too bad for her that the rope was still on the other side of a wall, which blocked the crawling foxfire green light of the charm easily.

Comet took a step backwards, her hand trembling on the wand before she appeared to notice and shoved her wand deep into a robe pocket. “You can’t allow a dangerous student to remain in the school, sir. No matter _what_ he’s done against a man who might be the last descendant of Slytherin.”

“Tell me how he’s dangerous.” Narcissa had to admit she enjoyed the looks of confusion on the Aurors’ faces as they glanced back and forth between the illusion and Comet. They might not believe it, either, but they would be wondering why Comet couldn’t make the illusion simply vanish if it _was_ a fake. “What else has he done besides fight in a war that the lot of you shoved on his shoulders too young?”

Comet squawked for a second, and then got herself under control with a frankly impressive gasp. “He’s rebelled against the Ministry, sir! Made insinuations that the Minister cannot allow to stand!”

“It sounds to me as though the Ministry has been lying to itself about the return of Tom Riddle long enough. If someone is forcing you to wake up and realize that you’ve been wrong, including that precious Minister of yours…”

“ _Sir!_ Please do not speak about Minister Fudge that way!”

“Why would I care who’s Minister, especially when they have a name like _Fudge_?” Narcissa made the illusion give Comet a look of such withering contempt that she actually did step back and blink, looking more than slightly unnerved. “What I care is that he’s acting against a student in my school, in my _House_ , who’s only fifteen years old. A fifteen-year-old needs six Aurors to arrest him?”

“If you understood how dangerous the extent of his political influence is, then you would agree with us.”

“But I do know a lot about the situation, and I do _not_ agree with you. You will take your Aurors from the school at once, madam. And not bring them back. Tell your Minister Fudge that he should battle _adults_.”

“I don’t know who you really are. But I know you’re not Godric Gryffindor. And I don’t have to obey any order that an enemy of the Ministry gives.”

This time, the dispelling charm was powerful enough that it really would have succeeded if the wall wasn’t in the way. But still Narcissa’s illusion remained, and there were sounds in the distance that she had been waiting for. She smiled and pulled back her control a little.

“I think you might be able to have a reception of your own, as befits enemies of my school.” And Narcissa made the illusion vanish and took the _Sonorus_ Charm off her own throat, but maintained the spell that let her see through the wall’s stones into the corridor. She wouldn’t miss this for anything.

“What is the meaning of this, Madam Comet?”

 _Oh, good, Minerva recognizes her._ Narcissa made herself comfortable against the wall and watched as Comet tensed for a second before turning around and inclining her head. The Aurors shuffled and looked a second away from casting Disillusionment Charms on themselves in the vain hope of blending in with the stone.

“We are here on a mission from Minister Fudge to make the school safe. We are here to arrest Harry Potter, in other words. We can’t imagine who thought it was a good idea to leave him here this long, but he’s had enough time to hurt and corrupt the other children.”

“You came at midnight? And without informing me of the need to arrest a fifth-year student?” Minerva’s voice was low enough that even Comet’s expression faltered for a second, before she sighed and shook her head.

“It’s common knowledge that his foster mother teaches in the school, Headmistress. If we’d given warning, then she might have helped him escape. And the last thing we want is to chase a fugitive.”

“You’re still legally required to give notice so that I can admit you to the school and you’re not uninvited guests.” Minerva took a step forwards as if she was going to shield the portrait hole from them. “And you’re required to notify the student’s family members when they’re underage.”

“This is hardly an ordinary situation, Headmistress McGonagall—”

“It seems to me an extraordinarily ordinary one. One motivated by fear and jealousy and all the other things that have haunted Mr. Potter since he became a student at this school.”

Narcissa gave a thin smile. It seemed that Minerva had finally awakened to the fact that this was part of an ongoing pattern of persecution, not something Narcissa had made up to make Harry feel “special.”

“Minister Fudge is not jealous of Mr. Potter. How dare you say that.”

“He doesn’t have to be the jealous one to send Aurors into the school. Only the fearful one. Leave, now, before I throw you out. Apply to visit at a normal time in the daylight, the way other Aurors arresting someone actually dangerous would do.”

“We’re here now. You might as well let us arrest the boy. The charge is fear-mongering and sedition against the Ministry—”

“And what of all the other students?”

“Other students?”

Minerva folded her arms and nodded. “The ones who also saw You-Know-Who appear at the gates of the school and Dark Marks melting off fellow students’ arms. What of me? I haven’t gone around proclaiming to the paper at every turn that You-Know-Who is back, but then again, neither has Mr. Potter. Are you going to arrest everyone who says something the Minister doesn’t like?”

Comet glanced over her shoulder, but Narcissa already knew no support would be coming from that direction. She had chosen Aurors to accompany her whose qualifications were loyalty and brawn, not intelligence.

Comet turned back and frowned. “If you’re going to insist on us following outdated procedure that no one needs when there are enemies of the _state_ in the school, Headmistress—”

“We disagree both about the presence of enemies here and the date of the methods,” said Minerva, with a sweet smile Narcissa hadn’t known she had in her. “But we do agree on you following them.”

Comet remained still enough for a moment that Narcissa tensed for the attack. And then she sighed and nodded slowly enough that it almost masked her putting her wand away. “If that’s what we have to do for you to listen to the Minister and follow the law, Headmistress.”

“I was listening to the Ministry and following the law long before you came here,” said Minerva. She shifted in a way that, not subtly, blocked the portrait hole from the sight of the Aurors. “I think you should leave now.”

The Aurors trailed away down the corridor. Comet followed, not without looking at Minerva again and again. Minerva never moved.

When the intruders had passed out of sight, Minerva did bow her head and sigh. Then she turned towards the portrait hole.

Narcissa made herself quietly vanish with a Disillusionment Charm. Minerva opened the portrait hole and climbed past it to head towards the stairs. Narcissa followed. After what she’d just witnessed, she thought that Minerva wouldn’t make trouble for Harry, but she did want to be _sure_.

Minerva did indeed approach the fifth-year boys’ bedroom, but spent a moment knocking and calling. Narcissa smiled at the sound of shuffling and muffled shrieks as the boys evidently dived out of sight, or wrapped themselves in blankets, or perhaps hid objects that weren’t supposed to be in sight. Then Longbottom’s weak voice said, “Come in, Headmistress.”’

Narcissa leaned in behind Minerva. The boys were sitting up in their beds, staring at her. Harry’s eyes focused on the slight shimmer of movement that Narcissa gave on purpose, so he would know she was there and watching. He smiled, nodded, and then focused on Minerva again.

“There were Ministry Aurors here who intended to arrest Harry,” said Minerva quietly, and then waited until their gasps—and some undignified swearing from Weasley—had died away. “I want to know if any of you sensed anything or made a motion to defend yourselves. They seem to have been held here by an apparition of Gryffindor. Did you create it?”

Heads shook. Longbottom looked as if he wanted to faint on the spot for being accused of anything. Harry was the one who said, “No, Headmistress. Really. We’ve all been up here and asleep the whole time.”

Minerva looked at all of them and sighed. “I could ask many questions and I’m afraid that I would find you were telling the truth.” She shook her head. “I want you to be cautious. If anyone from the Ministry comes to question you, don’t answer anything. Come and get me right away. Do you understand?”

“Yes, Headmistress.” Some of the boys were slower about saying it than others. Minerva looked them in the eye until she had it from everyone, even Weasley.

She paused before she left, and added, “I won’t let them take you, Harry. Minister Fudge has lost his mind, thinking he can send a strike force of Aurors into Hogwarts and kidnap you from under my nose. I promise I won’t let them touch you.”

Harry gave her a smile as weak as Longbottom’s. Narcissa knew that had far more to do with his lack of trust in Minerva than any actual weakness. “I understand. Thank you.”

Minerva sighed one more time, and then turned and went downstairs. Narcissa wished she could give Harry a hug, but aside from putting all the boys to sleep at once—too sudden for there not to be suspicion later—there was no way to do it. She caused one more shimmer of movement, and saw Harry’s smile strengthen.

Minerva walked down the stairs and almost to the portrait hole. Then she stopped, took a deep breath, and turned around.

“Mrs. Malfoy,” she said. “We should talk.”

And she turned and walked outside again before Narcissa could respond.


	9. Part Nine

“Are you going to tell me what changed your mind?”

Minerva grimaced. She and Narcissa had been in her office for five minutes, and Minerva had still done nothing more than sip from her cup and look at the wall. Now she turned around—she had a chair in the middle of a mostly circular desk, replacing the one that Narcissa remembered standing here in Dumbledore’s day—and scooped up a drift of paper.

“Albus left all sorts of parchments and notes. This is a bunch that I didn’t look at until the other day. I _didn’t know_.”

Narcissa gave her a quiet glance and bent down to read the parchments. In a few seconds, she understood. Even though Dumbledore never used the word, it was all too clear he was talking about Horcruxes.

“He knew Harry was one of these things.” Minerva’s eyes were closed when Narcissa looked up at her, tears slowly trickling from underneath them. “He knew it, and he planned to _sacrifice_ him.”

“He would have killed Harry?”

“No—I don’t think so, not personally. I think he would have sent Harry out to face Voldemort and let Voldemort kill him. There are other notes that say that’s the only way to get rid of a living Horcrux. Have someone who made the Horcrux cast the Killing Curse at him.”

“That’s the only way to get rid of it if you only care about _getting rid of it_ ,” Narcissa said, making sure to emphasize the last few words. “If you don’t care at all about _him_. Sirius and I have a different way.”

“I did hear that Sirius had his trial.” Minerva carefully dried her eyes with a handkerchief that was far too tartan for Narcissa’s taste. “What is the method?”

“I don’t know that I should tell you until I hear more about why you’re on our side. Is it just that the former Headmaster would have killed Harry?”

Minerva gave a soundless sigh that pursed her lips. “No. I thought about what Harry has been doing in the last little while. How he protected other students, how he challenged You-Know-Who almost on his own. And I’m sure that he had something to do with Professor Umbridge’s death.” She gave Narcissa a sharp glance.

“Perhaps you should keep accusations that could cut to yourself,” Narcissa suggested gently, but let her voice turn cold enough that Minerva could expect to see her breath soon.

Minerva looked away. “He’s a protector. A defender. And he’s taking on all these burdens that I know Albus would never have asked him to take—because he was intent on keeping him a child, innocent until he had to face You-Know-Who.”

“You mean ignorant.”

“Yes, all right, ignorant. That’s really what it was.” Minerva’s hands clenched in front of her as if she was growing claws through her fingertips. “Even now I don’t know why he chose that way. Is it somehow connected to how you have to act to destroy one of those things?”

“I think that he might have _thought_ it was. But there’s no evidence of that. If anything, perhaps he was afraid that Harry might survive a duel with Voldemort if he didn’t keep him unprepared and untrained.”

“Harry couldn’t _really_ do that.”

“Harry is a powerful wizard. And he has depths that neither you nor that other former Head of Gryffindor House have ever plumbed.”

“All right. I can—accept your word on that. Now, can we discuss what we’re going to do about Fudge and his blatantly _illegal_ attempt to arrest a fifteen-year-old with a detachment of trained Aurors?”

“Gladly.” Narcissa spun her wand between her fingers for a moment. “If I can get an oath that nothing of what I say to you will leave this office, unless we both agree that the person you want to tell can be trusted.”

Minerva tried to glare for a moment. She didn’t have nearly as much practice as Narcissa did, and she was smart enough to admit that after a second. She nodded and drew her wand. “I swear on the dragon heartstring that makes the core of my wand that I will never communicate, by word, writing, or any other method, any information that Narcissa Malfoy and I exchange in this office tonight.”

“Cute, but repeat the oath so that it includes information you _learn_ from me.”

Minerva blinked. “I truly wasn’t trying to have that be a loophole.”

“Do it anyway.”

Minerva did, and said, “Now, what do you intend?”

“I’ve thought for a while that we need a new Minister. Fudge is fixated on destroying Harry somehow, and at the moment, he’s a greater threat than Voldemort, who shows no inclination to move again soon. We need to remove Fudge.”

“You mean—”

“Not kill. That would be messy, and there are subtler ways. Now, let me tell you what plan I have in mind, and you can refine on it.”

*

“Headmistress! Headmistress, can we ask what’s going on?”

The Aurors had been trailing behind them shouting that for a few minutes now. Not as many of them recognized Narcissa, or else they might think it prudent to keep quiet. Narcissa kept quiet herself, walking beside Minerva. Minerva kept her gaze aimed ahead.

“Headmistress, please.” An Auror finally stepped in front of them as Minerva aimed for the Minister’s office. “We _can’t_ let you go in there unless you tell us what’s going on.”

Minerva drew herself up. She was impressive when she wanted to be, Narcissa could admit, if what you thought was impressive were actions that made someone pay attention to you instead of dismiss you until it was too late. “I am going to tell Minister Fudge what I think of him sending six Aurors to arrest a fifth-year.”

“ _What_?”

“Yes, his fulminating against Harry Potter crossed the line into illegal action last night. Six Aurors, and a Ministry representative who protested when I wouldn’t let her ‘do her duty,’ as she thought it was. You may well be shocked.”

Some of the Aurors looked more than shocked, Narcissa thought as she glanced around with the slight motions of her eyes beneath lowered lids that would keep people from noticing she was looking at them at all. There was smugness there, and outrage, and some cautious relief.

_They’re as embarrassed as the rest of us. They’ve been looking for some excuse to get rid of Fudge, and now they have it. They’ll want to make sure it sticks._

One of the relieved Aurors was Kingsley Shacklebolt, and he moved forwards to bow to Minerva. “You’re here in your official capacity as Headmistress of Hogwarts School, madam?”

“I am.” Minerva looked him full in the face, and seemed for a moment as if she would speak in contempt, but then she seemed to recognize him. “Kingsley Shacklebolt?”

“That’s right, Headmistress.”

“Then escort me to see the Minister, please. There’s something in Hogwarts’s charter that he needs to be reminded of.”

Narcissa smiled. She was glad now that she hadn’t got rid of Minerva. She wouldn’t have been able to invoke the charter. It had little place in her world. She would simply remove the threat and make sure no one could find the body.

But sometimes the legal way was preferable, if slower.

Shacklebolt led them the rest of the way, and other Aurors followed them or lingered in the corridor or went back to their desks as their temperaments permitted. Narcissa watched intently as Shacklebolt knocked on the Minister’s door. She couldn’t _see_ any poisoned needles or other traps coming out of the door. It didn’t mean they weren’t there.

Then she considered how intelligent Fudge actually was, to have sent those Aurors to arrest Harry in the first place, and revised her opinion.

A ginger-haired young man opened the door. Narcissa recognized him as Percy Weasley, one of the students she’d helped to teach when she was working with Aurora two years ago. He looked down his nose at all of them now, although Shacklebolt was well over his height.

“The Minister is busy with affairs of state. Unexpected interruptions will have to wait—”

“Like the _unexpected interruption_ of him sending six Aurors and one of Madam Bones’s assistants into the school last night? Thank you for giving me a name to hang on it, Mister Weasley. And excuse me.”

Minerva pushed easily past young Weasley. Narcissa hid her smile as she followed. There was an advantage to spending years instructing so many young wizards and witches. Minerva would have faced lies and insinuations and excuses from them all before this, although about detentions and late assignments rather than Aurors in the school. She knew exactly how to handle them.

“Headmistress, you _can’t_ —”

“What is the meaning of this?” Fudge demanded, standing up so fast that his bowler hat almost flew off his head.

“I would like to know that, indeed,” Minerva said, and her eyes glittered and her robes moved as if they were made of metal on the edges and Narcissa held back her laughter because it would do no good right now. “What is the _meaning_ of sending Aurors into Hogwarts at midnight to ‘destroy’ a fifteen-year-old?”

Fudge went pale so fast that Narcissa thought he might faint. “That’s not—there’s not—”

“I’m sure that the Minister had a good reason,” Weasley tried to intervene, his voice so pompous that Narcissa thought she could prick it and it would leak hot air. “Let’s calm down and talk about it, and let him say what it was.”

“I’m done listening to the Minister unless he learns better from his _mistakes_ ,” Minerva all but spat. Narcissa smiled. She had told Minerva that she would need to be impressive to carry off this part of the plan, and it seemed she had listened. “That means, among other things, that he explain to me _now_ why he sent Aurors, and without permission, and at night, and six of them.”

“That fifteen-year-old is spreading lies and sedition!”

“Such as?”

“That You-Know-Who is back! Ridiculous nonsense—”

“Even after the Pensieve memories that I understand you saw? Even after the reports of other students, and myself, and other adults who saw Voldemort manifest at the gates of Hogwarts?” Minerva shook her head. “Find better excuses for your obvious fear and jealousy of a child, Minister.”

“Fear! Jealousy!”

“Yes. Now that you understand the emotions, you should find them easier to explain. Well, Minister? I’m waiting.”

Narcissa savagely bit down on her lip. She wouldn’t laugh. She couldn’t laugh. It would mean that she would simply start _howling_ and wouldn’t stop.

Fudge decided to launch himself at a different target instead of answering Minerva’s question. “I am not answering any questions in front of _that woman_!”

“I’m afraid that Narcissa Malfoy has a perfect right to be here, as the foster mother of the boy whom you tried to arrest. Or exterminate. Whichever it was, Minister. That’s in the school’s charter, too.”

“If he’s _really_ her son, why hasn’t she stopped him spreading all these vicious rumors and getting involved in politics that could harm his health?”

“Because I don’t encourage my children to run and hide,” Narcissa said, thinking that was the outside of enough. “And there should be no danger to him in politics that doesn’t come from _Voldemort_ and his supporters. Or so I thought. But it seems that I’ve mistaken his enemies. You are one of them, aren’t you, Minister Fudge?’

He looked at her, and his sweat seemed to crystallize on his face. He was far from the smartest of men—which had proven useful in the past when Lucius needed to manipulate him—but he could read her expression.

“You don’t need to threaten me,” he whimpered. “I never intended to kill your—your son.”  
“I don’t know that that’s true,” Narcissa said. “And anyway, I’m not the one you need to speak to. It’s the Headmistress’s domain that you invaded. I know she has some choice things to say to you.” Then she shut up, and handed control of the conversation back to Minerva.

“The charter of the school says that no one except those connected to Hogwarts can intrude without permission,” Minerva said. Her smile made it seem like her Animagus form was a lioness, which Narcissa approved of. “Even the members of the governing board need to ask permission to visit. So do parents. They are not considered to belong to the school. Even more so, then, the current Minister who neither visited me nor intended to _help_ a student.”

“Headmistress—you can’t mean—”

“I do mean it. I mean that you’ve violated Hogwarts’s boundaries, the boundaries of an institution six centuries older than the Ministry. No one has ever dared attack us for long.” Minerva reached into her robe pocket and took out a heavy iron ring. Narcissa had heard of it, and so had Fudge, by the way his sick gaze settled on it. “For this reason.”

“I don’t—I didn’t mean to! It’s just that the boy is dangerous—”

“And again, there are paths you could have followed if you believed that. We don’t keep dangerous students around once we know they’re dangerous.”

“Then why is _that boy_ still there?”

“Because he is _not a danger_.”

Fudge should have heeded the warning in Minerva’s voice, but then again, he should have heeded it long ago. He blustered ahead. “I say he is! Besides the rumors that he’s been spreading, his mother—”

“I did warn you, Cornelius.” Minerva raised the iron ring, reached across the desk, and touched it to the middle of Fudge’s forehead. He froze and stared, then began to blubber. But no sound passed his lips.

“I invoke the right of Hogwarts to judge if one who interferes in Hogwarts is a righteous leader.”

The room filled with the sensation of a distant thunderstorm, and Narcissa felt the hairs on the outside of her arms rise. For a moment, symbols flashed above the iron ring. They moved so fast that Narcissa only knew what they were because the cycle repeated more than once. A golden lion with a scarlet sword clutched in its teeth. A black badger with a yellow cup in one paw. A bronze eagle crowned with a glowing blue diadem. And a silver serpent with an emerald locket around its neck.

The images blended a second later, and a creature that looked like a chimera—except for its distinctively feathered wings and the badger’s head that had taken the place of the goat’s—leaped from the ring and flowed towards Fudge. He might have ducked if he could. Narcissa knew it wouldn’t have made any difference.

He sobbed as several objects in the office shattered. Narcissa noticed that one of them was the signet ring that Ministers still sometimes used to seal official documents, and another was an upright case that had broken and sagged open. Inside were the robes that Fudge presumably wore to the Wizengamot. They spilled out and began to bubble and hiss as black fire destroyed them from the inside out.

Minerva pulled back her ring. Weasley was gaping at her. Minerva gave him a faint smile and said, “Percy Ignatius Weasley is the witness to the Minister’s dismissal from his post at the pleasure of Hogwarts. We trust that an election for a new Minister will be held shortly, and an Acting Minister appointed until then.” She nodded to Weasley, completely ignoring Fudge as if that part of the room had ceased to exist, and then swept out. Narcissa followed.

There was an uproar behind them, but no one dared to stop them. Minerva sailed serenely down the corridors and made people back away from her. Narcissa waited until they were closer to the fireplace they’d come in by to ask, “Why did Dumbledore never do that?”

“Fudge was more of a benefit to him when he was alive,” Minerva murmured as she reached for the Floo powder. “It was only later that he started being obstreperous.” She hesitated. “And the ring needs absolute faith in its power to work, a righteous cause, and no negative bias against one of the Houses. Otherwise, it strips the Headmaster or Headmistress who tried to use it of _their_ position, instead.”

Narcissa understood without Minerva having to explain further. _Of course._ Albus Dumbledore would have doubted, and he had had a bias against Slytherin House.

 _It was good to have help this time,_ Narcissa thought, as she smoothed out her robes from the journey and went to reassure Harry and Draco that they had nothing to worry about for the rest of their fifth year. _The more difficult it is for an enemy to trace this back to me, the better._

**The End**


End file.
